Search
Search
Scott Leonard (L) and Lloyd Bradley (R)
Thursday 16 January 2025
Press contact
A series of special events are to be hosted by Coventry University to celebrate black British music culture in the city.
Black Sound Coventry will tell the story of 100 years of musical creativity and DIY ingenuity with an exhibition, a panel event and a citizen curation day - all taking place at the university’s Delia Derbyshire building.
The aim is to shine a spotlight on the pioneers that made it all possible, from the players and promoters to the punters who supported the city’s music scene. It also seeks to show the importance of black British music to wider culture in Coventry.
Co-curated by acclaimed creative director Scott Leonard, and Lloyd Bradley, one of the UK’s foremost black music experts, Black Sound is a collaboration involving the Gallery of Living History, which has previously worked with Coventry University for the Gallery of Living History Schools Competition.
The Gallery of Living History’s aim is to encourage people to re-visit our history by telling the stories of those who may have been overlooked, forgotten or ignored.
The Black Sound exhibition (18th January-28th February 10am-5pm), previously on display at the Black Cultural Archive in Brixton, and the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham, plots the narrative of contemporary black music in Britain from the arrival of the Southern Syncopated Orchestra from the USA in 1919 to Fuse ODG’s afrobeat answer to Do They Know It’s Christmas more than 100 years later.
As the home of Two Tone, Coventry is ideally placed to host the event, though Black Sound aims to delve more deeply into the city’s wider black music heritage. It will feature exhibits tailored to Coventry in addition to those telling the national story.
As part of the wider event, special panel discussion events will also take place during a presentation evening on Friday 7th February (7-9pm) and on Saturday 8th February (10am-6pm), featuring films, talks and Q&As diving into the city’s sound system history, the underground black recording industry, the importance of community spaces and pirate radio.
Visitors will also get the chance to experience live performances from Coventry Youth Orchestra and a number of contemporary artists, including Danniella Dee, one of the founders of Sisters in Dub, Coventry's first all-female sound system.
The final event of Black Sound Coventry will be the Heritage Collection Day on Saturday 8th February (10am-6pm), encouraging people to share their memories of the city’s black music heritage. Visitors are asked to bring in objects or souvenirs to be 2D or 3D scanned, digitally preserving them for future generations to discover, learn from and enjoy.
Dr Ben Kyneswood from Coventry University’s Centre for Creative Economies will use the Coventry Digital platform to make the scans and the stories people tell available online.
When people think of black British music they think of places like London, Bristol, Manchester and Birmingham, but I didn’t feel Coventry’s place in the story is celebrated as much as it could be. I sometimes meet people who think black British music only really began to emerge in the 1990s but the story goes back decades and decades - Manchester United had its own Calypso song in the 1950s. The idea that so many of the innovations in black British music evolved from the DIY culture that surrounded it is so interesting.
It would be fantastic if people brought along their artefacts to be discussed with the music specialists at Black Sound Coventry - please don’t be shy, it doesn’t matter what they are, they just need to have a story behind them.
Lloyd Bradley
The heritage aspect of Black Sound is so important, sadly as time goes by these objects and the stories they tell are being lost, so it’s vital that we preserve the memory of them now before it’s too late. The advent of 3D scanning technology is fantastic, we don’t keep the objects or store them but we are able to keep their stories alive digitally.
We’re also excited to be screening Champion Sound, telling the story of Coventry’s Sound System Culture, as many people are unaware of this aspect of the city’s heritage.
This is the first time we have held the Black Sound exhibition outside of London and I think this combination of local and national stories will start to tell the bigger narrative.
By working with Coventry University, we hope to establish a model for how we can hold it in other areas of Britain.
Scott Leonard
We are extremely pleased to be able to support the (GoLH) Black Sound Coventry event. The Gallery and other facilities within the Delia Derbyshire building provide a fantastic venue for this vibrant showcase of black music culture. We want to extend this invitation to the people of Coventry to come and experience what’s on offer.
Dr Shaun Hides, Academic Dean at Coventry University’s College of Arts and Society
I am delighted that the Gallery of Living History has been able to facilitate another aspect of telling the ‘People’s History’ because each of our stories, as contributions, are relevant to the success of the country.
Margaret Casely-Hayford co-founder of the Gallery of Living History and former Chancellor of Coventry University
Margaret added that she was grateful to collaborators such as the Coventry Building Society for their support.
Find out more about the Gallery of Living History and Black Sound.