Black British Music: Outside the London Frame

While London has often been positioned as the centre of Black British music culture, vital scenes have emerged across cities and communities throughout the UK, each shaped by local histories, diasporas and creative networks. This conversation brings together artists, researchers and cultural practitioners to reflect on how Black music has been made, shared and sustained beyond the capital.

From grassroots movements to nationally influential sounds, the panel will consider how musicians have drawn on their immediate environments to develop distinct sonic identities. Together, speakers will explore how these regional perspectives challenge dominant narratives and expand our understanding of Black British music culture as plural, situated and deeply interconnected.

This panel forms part of a wider series of talks and screenings presented in collaboration with UCL and curated by Dr Clive Chijioke Nwonka for The Music is Black Festival from East Bank at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Panellist: 

  

Lanre Bakare  writes for the Guardian where his work focuses on the intersection of art, race and culture across multiple disciplines. He was senior correspondent on the award-winning Cotton Capital project, and his debut non-fiction book We Were There was published by The Bodley Head in 2025. It was chosen as a book of the year for 2025 by GQ, Esquire and the Observer. He was born and grew up in Bradford, West Yorkshire. 

  

Beverley Knight MBE is a British singer, songwriter, actress and radio personality. Widely recognised as the queen of British Soul music, in a career that has spanned over two decades Knight has achieved gold and platinum-selling albums, sold out tours, 14 Top 40 hits, 3 MOBO awards as well as multiple Brit Award and Mercury prize nominations. Alongside her solo performance career, Knight has had an equally successful career in the theatre. In 2023, Knight won the Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for her turn as Emmeline Pankhurst in 'Sylvia'. 

  

Mali Hayes is a British singer. Haiing from Manchester, Mali’s music takes influence from jazz, neo-soul and R’n’B. The resultant, unique sound has been compared to that of Jill Scott and Erykah Badu. Accompanied by either 4-piece or full 9-piece band, she was recently chosen to be part of the Gilles Peterson and Brownswood’s Future Bubblers programme and has performed at Manchester Jazz Festival. 

  

  

Dr Clive Chijioke Nwonka is Associate Professor in Film, Culture and Society in the School of European Languages, Culture and Society within UCL’s Faculty of the Arts and Humanities, and Professor in Practice at the British Film Institute. Nwonka’s scholarship broadly centres on race and the humanities. He is the author of the books Black Boys: The Social Aesthetics of British Urban Film (2023), Black Arsenal (2024) and the co-author of the forthcoming book Race and Racism in the Creative and Cultural Industries (2026). He is Academic in Residence for the V&A East’s Music is Black. 

 
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