A graffiti-covered piano played by the captivating 1950s pianist Winifred Atwell, the first Black British artist to top the U.K. charts; Dame Shirley Bassey’s dazzling Bond-esque gown, worn for a performance of “Goldfinger” at the 2013 Academy Awards; the iconic Union Jack vest donned by boundary-breaking rapper Stormzy during his 2019 Glastonbury headline set. Weave your way through “The Music is Black,” and you’ll encounter some of the most visually striking and historically important artifacts of the modern British musical story.

The exhibition, which opened in April, is the first at the new V&A East Museum, the East London-based offshoot of the prestigious South Kensington institution (think of it as a cool younger sibling). “The Music is Black” embarks on a sweeping, ambitious tour through the history of Black British music, tracing the emergence of eight unique genres created and developed in Britain: lovers rock, Brit funk, 2 Tone, trip-hop, jungle, drum and bass, U.K. garage and grime. In addition to analyzing their cultural importance and the relationships among certain subcultures, the exhibition fleshes out the roots of these sounds in Jamaican sound system culture, jazz and traditional West African music.

“For Black British music makers, this is a confirmation of their value. It reiterates the importance of Black music but also just how undercelebrated Black British music has been,” says Jacqueline Springer, lead curator of the exhibition. Her background as a music reporter and academic led her to a start date of 1900, which she pinpoints as “when mass media gallops into modernity [with the creation of radio]… this provides a relatively instant way of telling you what’s happened in the world, and you can intone and further disseminate these prejudicial structures through this new media.”

To establish the context for 20th- and 21st-century Black British musical innovation, Springer and her collaborators decided to begin the experience with a room that captures powerful moments from the first centuries of contact between Europeans and West Africa, beginning in the 1400s. On entering “The Music is Black,” visitors are handed an over-ear headset that’s programmed to play different music in different parts of the exhibition. You can remain with a particular piece of music as long as you’d like, revisit one that stuck with you, or enter a neutral zone if you require some peace and quiet; the fluid nature of the technology means “The Music is Black” is a lively and engrossing experience, but one that you are in control of throughout.

Sonically, Act One begins with a tense, ethereal landscape that engulfs you as you witness distressing, highly influential old documents, such as the legal paper signed by King Charles II in 1672 to legalize the trade in enslaved people along the West African coastline. This introductory section is kept brief and is all the more powerful for it, this history of violence and oppression lending additional weight to the narratives of resistance and innovation that follow.

“Music pushes through, and the oppressed and misrepresented always come through, and that is one of the ongoing triumphs of Black music,” says Springer, whose mission was to join the dots between hundreds of diverse, centuries-spanning stories of creativity and endurance under the ongoing influence of the British colonial project. Walking around, you’re encouraged to draw connections of your own, too: between pioneering Jamaican jazz guitarist Ernest Ranglin’s arrival in England and the creation of the 2 Tone ska movement in the late 1970s, for example, or, if you’re a grime music nerd (like me), the relationship between legendary Welsh singer Shirley Bassey and 21st-century grime producer DJ Spooky (whose brassy “Goldfinger”-sampling instrumental is a cult classic).

Building on the exhibition’s work and offering an opportunity to spotlight the plethora of creatives not featured within the V&A East’s walls, an accompanying book written by Springer and also titled “The Music is Black” has been published, and an extensive program of talks and live music events has been taking place at both the museum and the adjoining East Bank site (which hosts a four-weekend festival from June to September). On top of that, there’s a partnership with the BBC that secures greater education for British children on Black British musical history via BBC Bitesize, as well as the broadcasting of relevant documentaries on BBC iPlayer.

Few U.K. exhibitions spark the development of this kind of broader cultural world. According to the V&A East’s artistic director Gus Casely-Hayford, “The Music is Black” aims to reshape the perception of British music both on these shores and abroad, exemplifying how “this is our story, and it’s one of our major contributions to the world.” It isn’t just about evolving culture and touching people emotionally; recent research suggests that Black music accounted for 80 percent of the money generated by the U.K. industry in the last 30 years, and exhibitions like this show that, at last, that fact is gaining wider appreciation.

“It’s deeply moving that [the exhibition] has rippled out, it’s got this wavular effect. But that is Black music,” Springer adds. “It’s fitting to me that there is so much enthusiasm, and the scale of it is beyond my expectations. That’s good because it reiterates just how important this is.”

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Popular interest in ancient Rome has surged in recent years, boosted by pop culture phenomena like Ridley Scott’s box office hit Gladiator II and the 2023 viral TikTok trend asking men how often they think about the Roman Empire. Constant reminders of Rome’s wide-reaching influence—from its road networks and grid-like town layouts to commonly used Latin phrases like “status quo,” “et cetera” and “vice versa”—ensure modern Europeans, and Americans, too, remain fascinated by this timeworn yet familiar world.

It’s worth pointing out that, beyond poppy fads, our understanding of the Roman Empire is constantly shifting as archaeologists and historians unearth new evidence and offer new interpretations of existing material. Decanting the latest is a multi-institutional collaboration between the British Museum and Colchester and Ipswich Museums called “Gladiators of Britain,” which is currently touring the U.K. and presenting fresh findings centered around public spectacle and blood sports on the northern periphery of the Roman Empire.

On display are artifacts like the Colchester Vase, which depicts a number of arena scenes, including a gladiator fight between Valentinus, a retiarius (a “net-man” with a net, trident and dagger), and Memnon, a secutor (a “chaser” who fought with a shield and sword). New analysis shows that this vase was made of Colchester clay and fired in Essex, eastern England; as such, the exhibition suggests that, contrary to prior belief, Roman gladiatorial fights did take place on British soil.

“It was presumed the vase was made by craftspeople on the European continent because of the high quality of the depictions, and the familiarity with the gladiators’ armor. But the evidence points to the vase being a bespoke-made souvenir, from a real fight by real gladiators that may have been based in Colchester,” Jill Birrell, curator at Northampton Museums & Art Gallery, tells Observer. She augmented the touring display with touches of local Northamptonshire history like the 2nd-century clasp knife found at nearby Piddington Villa and engraved glass fragments discovered by the village of Nether Heyford—objects that help to paint a broader picture of Roman life in England’s East Midlands.

“It gives an insight into a way of life for people living locally… they were engaging in different aspects of Roman life, they were interested in these games and collecting objects embellished with gladiators signified high social status,” she adds. “The amphitheaters were very large, and the games that happened were quite barbaric… it wasn’t just gladiators fighting each other but beast fights as well, a real range of activities, and it’s something that people wanted to keep a memento of.”

The exhibition arrives, coincidentally, at a time when the likes of Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal have enlivened the image of the gladiator in the public eye. But according to Greg Jenner, an author, historian and broadcaster who hosts the popular history podcast You’re Dead To Me, it’s easy to overplay the magnitude of this recent Roman revival.

“I don’t think interest in the Roman Empire is higher, but I wonder if it’s more focused,” he tells Observer. “Rome is this constant drumbeat that sometimes goes quieter, and occasionally it’s this loud crescendo where we all agree that Romans are really important, but they never go away. Their legacy endures in our institutions, our memory, our language, the physical spaces we encounter… if you go to a law court, a stately home or an art gallery, chances are it’ll have some Romanesque columns or a Romanesque dome or art… they are both distant and unknowable and also somehow still with us.”

This certainly seems true of gladiatorial fights; while their sense of grand spectacle and passionate arena-based fandom is familiar to us, their severe brutality feels alien, and therefore fascinates us. There also remain several misconceptions around the gladiator role, from understandable confusion about their unique social status (as a vulnerable, typically enslaved fighter who nonetheless holds the potential to win glory, fame and freedom) to the assumption that most clashes would end in death (which would’ve left sponsors seriously out of pocket).

“There was a strange disconnect between the glory that could be achieved by a great gladiator or charioteer, and the fact that the moment you went into the arena, you were tarnished socially; potentially you were enslaved, or a foreign captive, or a criminal,” Jenner says. “This idea that gladiators were sacrificial lambs for Rome’s bloodsport is a fabricated notion that we get from 18th- and 19th-century paintings, and we still carry around these ideas; Hollywood perpetuates them.”

“Gladiators of Britain” attempts to debunk some of these popular myths, shedding light on the realities of Roman spectacle in Britain in a smart, spacious display; alongside simplistic cream scrolls hanging from the walls, glass cabinets present artifacts that help define our understanding of Roman Britain in new ways. For example, British Museum experts have made a high-quality brass faceguard for the famous Hawkedon Helmet, which dates to A.D. 43-69, was found in Suffolk, eastern England in 1965 and is thought to be the only known piece of Roman gladiator equipment found in Britain.

“I really like how the British Museum’s specialists have been able to recreate the whole piece that would’ve covered the gladiator when he was fighting, conserving objects but also adding meaning and interpreting them with modern understanding,” says Birrell. “That really detailed analysis can give you insights that just research can’t.”

Perhaps the most exciting thing about this exhibition is that it represents an opening of new doors that could lead anywhere, rather than a resolution to age-old questions. New discoveries relating to Roman Britain are frequently being made, and “Gladiators of Britain” shows how images of the ancient world can be tweaked and adjusted over time.

“The reason we keep getting drawn to Rome is because it keeps changing in front of us,” says Jenner. “It’s everything you want it to be, but also it’s often surprising, and it often pulls the rug out from underneath you. There’s a lot to be said for accepting that we’re often going to be wrong about Rome.”

The British Museum’s “Gladiators of Britain” will be at the Grosvenor Museum in Chester from September 20, 2025, through January 25, 2026, before moving to the Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery in Carlisle.

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