Hip Hop Museology: Remixing Museum Practices around Black British Popular Culture

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The wide gap in museum practice surrounding Black popular culture in the UK has been made all too clear to me, whether as a museum visitor, a student of history and African studies, or most recently as a museum professional. Having grown up mostly in England, my research interests focus on the urge to include and empower Black popular culture in English political institutions. My work has addressed the globalisation of Ghanaian Highlife, transnational transformations of Ananse/Anansi the Spider, bottom-up histories of working-class Black women in Britain, and oral histories, provenance and restitution of African museum collections. The Project's call for contributions to close this gap greatly interested me and encouraged my application. Whilst this Project highlights the importance of analysing the internal epistemological foundations of museum structures and practices, the way in which museum structures are externally viewed in Black British popular culture should also be considered. Therefore, my approaches to this project will be community focused. My refined proposed questions would focus on concerns such as:What does the term 'museum' mean to Black communities/how are they (re)defined? How are museums illustrated in Black British popular culture? (Including within lyrics, comics, social media)Who 'owns' Black British popular culture? Why/How is it 'remixed' in order to adapt to the power structures of/in museums?