Free Thursday evening DJ residency that turns the V&A East's upper ground floor into a dancefloor, with OLUWA as the first guest selector.
upperground is a new DJ residency at V&A East Museum, and it's taking over the upper ground floor on Thursday evenings. The idea is simple: they turn that space into a dancefloor and invite different artists and selectors to build an extended set in their own musical language, while visitors listen, dance and meet. It runs during the museum's public opening hours, so it's more of a mid-week wind-down than a late-night clubbing thing.
It started as a summer pilot and draws on the sounds from the museum's inaugural exhibition, The Music is Black: A British Story, a multi-sensory journey through more than 125 years of Black British music. The residency runs in partnership with BBC Introducing as part of the BBC's The Music is Black season of programming, and the nights also open up the museum's galleries and exhibitions, a Café Jikoni pop-up bar and the Level 3 rooftop terrace.
The line-up is spread across several months, with a different selector taking the decks each Thursday. OLUWA kicks things off on 22 October, followed by sweetestcape on 5 November, Elijah on 26 November, Crash Tracy on 3 December and Ryan Lovell on 10 December. Earlier dates in the series featured Cheza Lucina on 8 October and DRYBABE on 15 October.
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It runs from 18.30 to 21.30 on Thursdays, and entry is free. The dates are 22 and 29 October, 5, 12, 19 and 26 November, and 3, 10 and 17 December 2026, at V&A East Museum, Upper Ground floor, 107 Carpenters Rd, London, E20 2AR.
