Brit funk, two-tone, lovers rock, jungle, drum and bass, trip-hop, UK garage, grime—the genres that have defined British popular culture over the past half century were created by Black British musicians, often in the face of institutional indifference or outright hostility. That argument, stated plainly, is the premise of a major new exhibition inaugurating the brand-new V&A East Museum in Stratford, part of one of the most ambitious cultural developments in Britain in a generation. The show spans 125 years and features such goodies as Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s conducting baton from the early 1900s, Joan Armatrading’s childhood guitar, the jacket Skin wore when she became the first Black woman to headline the Glastonbury Festival, in 1997, and the dress Shirley Bassey wore to perform Goldfinger at the 2013 Academy Awards. The case it makes is not a niche one: British music is Black music. —Elena Clavarino