Negusa Nagast (King of Kings) Menelik II of Ethiopia Guest blog by Eyob Derillo of the British Library Ethiopian collection The year 2019 marks the 175th anniversary of the birth of King Menelik II, one of Ethiopia’s most famous and influential monarchs. King Menelik and his wife Queen Taytu bequeathed…

AWATE joined the British Library this summer as Artist-in-Residence for Unlocking Our Sound Heritage, the British Library’s major project to digitally preserve and widely share the nation’s rare and at-risk sounds. During his five-month residency, AWATE will use the extensive sound archive to weave together a long-form genre-bending musical piece…

This week’s selection comes from Andy Linehan, Curator of Popular Music. Charlie Gillett, in his later years best-known as a World Music broadcaster, spent many years investigating the roots of rock music. He hosted Honky-Tonk on BBC Radio London in the 1970s where many of his guests were influential figures…

This week’s selection comes from Mat Hart, World & Traditional Music volunteer for Unlocking our Sound Heritage. This beautiful song is composed and performed by Madi Lehbib, who sings and plays percussion on this track, with accompaniment from guitarist Mahmud Bara. The song is sung in local Arabic dialect –…

Dr Joshua Cohen uses the oral histories in the CPGB Biographical Project to look at the motivations of communists of Jewish heritage.