Beyond the Bassline: 500 Years of Black British Music: British Library, London

Spanning the course of half a millennium this exhibition will demonstrate how Music, for people of African descent, has been a means through which to express our heritage and rituals; a means through which we have internally negotiated our stories of struggle and oppression, spirit and strength.

Using the drum as a focal point - the curatorial approach explores how music, through its rhythm and dance, has given rise to an oral tradition that spans oceans and continents; of beats and breaths from which we, as a scattered people, can chart ancestral connections and honour our homelands.

Drawing on multiple streams of Black experiences, the exhibition will explore the people, spaces and messages that formed part of a British soundtrack. It moves beyond solely celebratory aspects of Black creativity to recover the complex social and political processes that transformed the landscape of British popular culture.

The philosophical principle of 'arguments from silence' underpins the design approach, with absence and pause, holding as much weight as sound and beat - using both to spotlight the presence and impact Black people have had on these islands.