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 about the BMRU more generally, please get in touch – we’d love to hear from you! You can email the team at [email protected].
Beyond the Bassline: A retrospective
The final week of August saw the end of Beyond the Bassline at the British Library, after a four month stint at the iconic landmark. As sad as we are to see it go, we’re so immensely proud of the exhibition and everything it has achieved. We made and changed history through the exhibition, which walked visitors through 500 years of Black-British history and represents years of work, research, and the largest exhibition of Black-British music to date.
If you missed the exhibition, don’t fear – stay up to date with the BMRU, either through these emails, or @thebmru on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. This isn’t the end of Beyond the Bassline, and we want you to be the first to hear about where the exhibition goes next…
If you want to know more about the exhibition, or you’re just as keen as we are to revisit it with a little stroll down memory lane, see below for some of the exhibition’s best moments:
The opening night, as chronicled by University of Westminster vice-chancellor Peter Bonfield
The Beyond the Bassline feature on Channel 4
Ezra Collective performing at One of the Beyond the Bassline Late Sessions
We’ve loved seeing the satellite exhibitions popping up in tandem with the main British Library one! Here a miniature Beyond the Bassline exhibition takes pride of place in Ewell Library in Surrey.
And here’s BMRU director Mykaell on Later with Jools Holland, summing up beautifully why the exhibition strikes a chord with so many.
We would love to know what you thought of the exhibition, and what you’d like us to do next. The history and the stories told in Beyond the Bassline belong to all of us, and we want you to have a part in shaping its legacy. Tell us about your experience of the exhibition, along with what you think we should do post-closing, here.
Boarders:
BMRU Director Mykaell Riley has brought the BBC to the University of Wesmtinster once more, as he commissions students to create original music for the hit BBC3 show Boarders. Following the immense success of Season 1, which saw Westminster Music students composing, producing and performing original works, earning them IMDB credits as undergraduates, the Boarders team have requested another season of student-led work. Not only will this give students an experience of composing for television, allow them to make connections within the industry and boost their CV, but it also offers them the chance to see their name in print, as featured artists on the Boarders album. If you haven’t watched Boarders yet, you can stream all episodes on iPlayer now. And if you haven’t already, get the Boarders album on your radar.
We can’t wait to share with you updates from Season 2 – keep your eyes peeled and we’ll keep you posted.
Upcoming Events and Updates from the BMRU team:
Mykaell:
A very exciting month, as Boarders has been nominated for a 2024 Music and Sound Award, in the category Best TV sync! The nomination details are here:
Boarders Series 1
Entrant / Supervision: Carmen Montañez-Callan + Mykaell Riley at Studio Lambert, UK
Track: ‘Never Be the Same’ Joseph Burnett
Publisher / Label: Studio Lambert Media Limited
Director: Sarmad Masud
You can give the track a listen here. Stay tuned for when the results are announced – we’ll keep you posted! Keep your fingers crossed for Boarders and for Joseph…
Julia
This October Julia Toppin interviews Dr Joy White about her book Like Lockdown Never Happened – Music and Culture During COVID 19. Speaking on the New Nationwide Report podcast Julia alongside Dr Rita Gayle and Dr Cheraine Scott discuss the importance of Black music and Black popular culture during the height of the pandemic. From online radio station No Signal’s Vybe Cartel vs Wizkid 10×10 challenge to the global Don’t Rush challenge the scholars explore how these moments produced collective joy and community during lockdown.
New Nationwide Project is on Repeater Radio and available on Soundcloud after broadcast.
Sally
Looking back to the summer, it was fun bumping into Mykaell at the We Out Here Festival talk and discussing our research.
And this year we were proud to host our final Richard Antwi Scholar, and on the MA Music Business Management course we are thrilled this month to have Darcus Beese coming in to talk about his book. You can read a bit more about Darcus here.
Lizzie
As the BMRU Research Associate, things are always busy – but they feel especially busy now a new term is upon us! This September, I’m working on a Beyond the Bassline event hosted by Bristol Library, which will invite local performers to speak on the Bristolian relationship with Black-British music. I’m also exploring potential BMRU Black History Month activities, in collaboration with partners like the Civil Service, and liaising with the University of Westminster Library to ensure we have it stocked full of the books that were featured in the Beyond the Bassline exhibition shop. Outside of my work for the BMRU, I’m a PhD student working on Black-British conscious rap and autofiction, and I’m finalising a chapter of that for my annual progress review, drawing inspiration from all of the things I’ve learned in conversation with and from my colleagues here.