Instagram has changed how we arrive at exhibitions. Too often, the show has already been walked for you, image by image, even before you've bought a ticket. But we rarely talk about what it feels like to be in exhibition spaces. 

A recent UK Music report found that Black music has generated 80% of the UK’s recorded music revenue—£24.5 billion—over the past 30 years. Just 22% of senior industry professionals are Black. The Music is Black sits on a continuum that includes the British Library's Beyond the Bassline (2024), the Barbican's survey of Black London's musical landscape, and Sonia Boyce's Feeling Her Way, which won the Golden Lion at Venice and toured Turner Contemporary and Leeds Art Gallery in 2023.

People I came up with built the clubs and sound systems that now appear in exhibitions like this one, from AWOL, founded in 1992 at the Paradise Club in Islington, to Jah Shaka, which carried the politics of sound around the country. I felt the gap between the aliveness of those memories in my body and the stillness of the objects in this exhibition.

You move through the show wearing headsets with sensors that trigger audio as you approach each object or video screen. Remove them, and the room is silent, there is no ambient sound at all. I appreciated that option, as someone who sometimes needs a sensory break. What it couldn't give me was what those nights actually felt like: sound moving through a room, through everyone in it. At any of the gatherings depicted on those walls, we moved together. Here we listened in what felt a little bit like test tubes.

I had high hopes for this space in terms of access, following the V&A's Design and Disability exhibition, which ran at South Kensington until February 2026 with integrated seating, rest zones, tactile guides and BSL throughout. It set a bar. The Music is Black didn't clear it, unfortunately, and that matters for the one in four people in the UK who are disabled. There were few rest zones and little natural light. Standing through a four-act show in near darkness is not a neutral design decision. Several interpretation panels were dimly lit. I was so engrossed in the works that I could let that go, but it was a tricky space to navigate, bodily, and I felt the memory of those charged nights drain from me.

For a moment, did I see Rita Ora's face on a big screen overhead, and what exactly is she doing here? Was it the lack of air?

Will I go back? Yes. Have I sent friends with their kids? Yes. This show will matter to a generation encountering this history for the first time. As Norman Jay said at the launch, there aren't many household names here, but there are a lot of pioneers. My teenager grew up with these conversations at home, and she left the exhibition knowing more than she came in with. She didn't come away talking about the movements or the politics, which is what these sounds are built on. Our stories are there, they just needed more room to breathe.

The Music is Black: A British Story is at V&A East Museum, until 3 January 2027. Weekday tickets from £22.50, weekend from £24.50. Under 26s and students from £10. Free for V&A Members. V&A East is free. Open daily 10 am–6 pm, Thursday and Saturday until 10 pm.

‍