2 minute read
IT TAKES BLOOD & GUTS
Skin, lead singer of rock band Skunk Anansie, solo artist, LGBTQ+ activist and all-around trailblazer, launches her memoir this month in a broadcast event hosted by Southbank Centre
When Skunk Anansie emerged in the mid-90s, they did so with quite a bang. This was largely due to Skin, the band’s almost impossibly cool lead singer. With her shaved head, big voice and charisma, she became a star overnight. No one else in the music industry looked or sounded like her. They released six albums and secured themselves a place in the Guinness Book of Records as one of the most successful British bands of the 1990s.
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Releasing their debut record in 1994, they were loosely associated with the Britpop movement. But Skunk Anansie don’t fit into any one category. Led by a working-class, black, British gay woman, Skunk Anansie broke the mould. All these years later they still do. How many successful rock bands have emerged since with a singer like Skin?
Her story is unique and she’s decided to tell it from her own perspective. Her memoir, It Takes Blood and Guts, came out in September 2020.
According to Skin: “It’s been a very difficult thing being a lead singer of a rock band looking like me and it still is. I have to say it’s been a fight and it will always be a fight. That fight drives you and makes you want to work harder... It’s not supposed to be easy, particularly if you’re a woman, you’re black or you are gay like me. You’ve got to keep moving forward, keep striving for everything you want to be. It’s been a fight, and there has been a personal cost, but I wouldn’t have done it any other way.”
Skill will be discussing the book at Southbank Centre as part of the Inside Out literary events programme. The event will be broadcast online on Thursday, March 4 at 7.30pm and will be available On Demand for seven days.
She is set to return to Southbank Centre in June to perform at Grace Jones’ Meltdown festival. Naturally, Grace Jones broke the mould in the same way back in the 70s and 80s. The combined force of Skin and Grace will make for quite the post-lockdown treat.
According to Skin, Skunk Anansie are very much a live band. In 1999, they performed on the biggest stage in British rock as Glastonbury headliners. Fast-forward 20 years, and Stormzy did the same to great effect. He initially claimed to be the first black artist to secure the headline slot, but when he realised his error he Tweeted: “Skin from the band Skunk Anansie was actually the first black artist to headline glasto she done it with her band in 1999 no disrespect intended and MASSIVE salute to you – my apologies! @skinskinny.” (sic)
It’s unfortunate that her groundbreaking headline slot was all but forgotten, but as Stormzy’s Tweet demonstrated, Skin is finally getting the credit she deserves.
