South London Black Music Archive

South London Black Music Archive was a project by Barby Asante and The Leaders of Tomorrow (LOT), a leadership, enrichment mentoring program designed to raise the academic achievement of children and young people particularly those of African and Caribbean heritage commissioned by Peckham Space in London. The founding item of the South London Black Music Archive was a ‘limited edition’ vinyl called Legacy Tunes, which featured a recorded  sound work Barby’s own take on the BBC’s ‘inheritance tracks’ for which members of LOT were asked to share the most significant music both for them and for their families that meant something for their lives and futures. The vinyl was created with support from Regeneration & Community Partnerships, Tate Modern with an exclusive record sleeve by graphic design collective Åbäke. The invitation of this open archive was to “Listen” “Share” and “Contribute” welcoming the public into this archive to participate in it’s creation. Visitors brought their items including books, magazines, concert tickets, posters, stories, records and CDs which were logged and displayed with the reverence of museum pieces. The aim to celebrate, preserve and investigate South Londoners’ personal relationships with moments in black music history and to think about the relevance of the everyday and the ordinary as significant to history making. It also featured a map of significant black music spots, venues and sites in South London from the 1950’s- 2000’s created in dialogue with South Londoners and designed in collaboration with Åbäke. This archive was a temporary proposition and was presented at Peckham Space in and Tate Modern in 2012.

Credits for South London Black Music Archive:

Peckham Platform

Tate Regeneration and Community Partnerships 

Åbäke

Valin Miller 

Leaders of Tomorrow 

Wozzy Brewster 

United Vibrations

Handson Family 

Mpho Skeef 

Guy Clark 

And everyone who contributed items to the South London Black Music Archive