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The BMRU’s Mykaell Riley has contributed to a game changing new report into the Black-British music industry. The Black Music Means Business report, spearheaded by the UK Music Diversity Taskforce, concluded that Black music contributes centrally to the UK’s musical economy, but is simultaneously significantly limited by a lack of opportunities forwarded to new artists. […]

On the 5th of March, the Black Music Research Unit hosted an exclusive premiere of Season 3, Episode 1 of Boarders at the Regent Street Cinema. Over 150 people attended, including the production crew, and most of the cast members of the show. Boarders has been tied to Westminster for three seasons now, with our […]

Last week, Prof. Mykaell Riley, director of the BMRU, and BMRU research associate Lizzie Bowes were kindly invited to present at the Transatlantic Rap conference, hosted at the Sorbonne-Nouvelle in Paris. This one-day symposium brought together leading thinkers in literary studies, cultural studies and musicology, from across the UK, USA and Europe. Prof. Riley’s keynote […]

The BMRU’s professor Mykaell Riley had a busy weekend – heading down to Southampton for a one-night only event chronicling the history of jazz. Titled Southampton’s Jazz Story, the event saw a 12-piece house band, 6 vocalists, and a host of guest speakers – Mykaell included – to tell the story of how jazz came […]

The music education charity Young Sounds, in partnership with the Black Music Research Unit, has been awarded AHRC Spoke Project funding. Over the next year, the team will launch the EQUALIZE project, aimed at tackling the underrepresentation of Black-British music in schools. This will involve the rollout of summer schools in Bradford and Birmingham, and […]

The BMRU is so proud and excited to announce that our Director, Dr. Mykaell Riley, has been promoted to Professor! This comes after his fantastic work as music director on the hit BBC series Boarders and his position as co-curator of the first national exhibition of Black-British music, Beyond the Bassline. As Professor, Mykaell will […]

Beyond the Bassline, our 2024 national exhibition of Black-British music, has landed in Bristol. In collaboration with the Living Knowledge network, a capsule of the exhibition will be on display in the Bristol Beacon from the 21st June – 5th of July 2025, before moving to other libraries in the city. This is a fabulous […]

Beyond the Bassline scooped an award at the Museum and Heritage Awards Show 2025 last week (15th May), winning the prize for Temporary or Touring Exhibition of the Year (budget more than £80k). This is the second time the exhibition has been honoured with an award, after the accompanying book to Beyond the Bassline won […]

Director of the BMRU, Dr Mykaell Riley, travelled to Cambridge earlier this month (3-6 April) to speak at the British Forum for Ethnomusicology. In collaboration with Dwandalyn Reece and Steven Lewis (Smithsonian Institution), Dr Riley featured on a panel titled “Narratives of Black Music in the US and UK”: “The focus of the topic is […]

Dr Mykaell Riley, Director of the BMRU, saw his work take him to Northern Ireland last month. He was invited to attend the Imagine! Belfast Festival, speaking on a panel titled “Songs of Freedom”. The panel “delves into the history of these iconic sounds, exploring their impact on Belfast culture and beyond, and why they […]

*This story first appeared on the University of Westminster’s News page, on the 14th of February 2025. You can read the original story here. After their successful work on the first series, University of Westminster students were invited back alongside Dr Mykaell Riley, Director for the University’s Black Music Research Unit (BMRU) and Principal Investigator for Bass Culture Research, […]

*This story first appeared on the University of Westminster’s News page, on the 19th of March 2025. You can read the original story here. The University of Westminster has collaborated with Prostate Cancer UK for the second event in its public awareness series on prostate cancer. The interactive panel event brought together clinicians, researchers and […]

*This story first appeared on the University of Westminster’s News page, on the 2nd of April 2025. You can read the original story here. The tie-in book for the Beyond the Bassline exhibition at the British Library, curated by Dr Mykaell Riley, Senior Lecturer, Director for the Black Music Research Unit (BMRU) and Principal Investigator for Bass […]

We were delighted to bring together cast and crew, along with BMRU students who contributed to the soundtrack, of the hit BBC show Boarders, at an exclusive screening at Regent Street Cinema earlier this month (3rd of April). Guests were treated to live performances of songs from the show, an insight into working in television […]

Welcome to the first monthly newsletter from the BMRU! We hope these updates can serve as a means of connecting researchers in the field of Black music, and share opportunities, insights and news across both the academic and practical sides of the sector. If you have any questions regarding the contents of this email, or […]

How can the concept of “Black British Music” be reframed or reimagined to better capture the diversity and complexity of Black musical experiences in Britain? What role should national institutions, such as the British Library, play in preserving and promoting Black British Music? And how can collaborations and partnerships between institutions, researchers, artists, and communities […]

Beyond the Bassline: 500 Years of Black British Music For centuries, Black communities have created music in the UK, melding global influences into a Black British sound that has echoed through generations. Beyond the Bassline at the British Library, the first major exhibition of its kind anywhere in the world, is about more than music. […]

This event has now ended. To see what the BMRU is currently up to, or to stay up to date with our future events, please sign up to our mailing list here: On the 25th of March 2023, the BMRU was honoured to host, along with the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton, a night of […]

Prostate Cancer in Black Musicians: Is Music Making You Sick? Observational data has suggested that a number of jazz guitarists have developed and died of prostate cancer. Cancer incidence is strongly linked to lifestyle choices – race, diet, late nights, smoking and alcohol, but is this purely lifestyle related? Or is there something else at […]