It Takes Blood And Guts
★★★★ Skin With Lucy O’Brien SIMON AND SCHUSTER. £20 The epic tale of Glastonbury’s Black British Brixton-born headliner. When Stormzy headlined Glastonbury in 2019, many forgot another Black British Londoner who had done similar 20 years earlier. Skin’s story is one of the Britpop decade’s forgotten epics: the granddaughter of a Windrush immigrant leaving her Christian family in Brixton behind, to discover herself through art, rave and rock, and find global fame with her band, Skunk Anansie. She nimbly navigates the Top 20, band politics and festivals, before becoming Alexander McQueen’s muse, befriending Lemmy, singing with Luciano Pavarotti, and hanging out with Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama. Despite this immense cast list, Skin’s feet are positioned firmly on the ground throughout; she’s a winningly genial, sweary soul on paper. She also offers the best rejoinder ever to racist barbs: “Nineteen-fiftytwo called…it wants its wanker back!” Jude Rogers