Soul II Soul brings one of the defining sounds of modern Black British music to Glasgow during Black History Month.
Led by Jazzie B, the collective developed from London’s sound-system and warehouse-party culture before becoming an international success at the end of the 1980s.
Songs including Keep on Movin’ and Back to Life helped create a sound that combined soul, funk, reggae, dance music and Caribbean-influenced sound-system culture with a distinctly British identity.
The story behind the music is particularly significant.
Sound systems had become important cultural spaces within Britain’s Caribbean communities, providing places where records could be heard, DJs and MCs could experiment and young Black Britons could create their own musical and social environments.
Soul II Soul carried that independent mentality into clubs, fashion and eventually the international music industry.
Their nights at venues including London’s Africa Centre helped build a community around a new generation of Black British music.
The National Portrait Gallery notes that Soul II Soul began through sound systems and warehouse parties, while the group itself continues to describe that sound-system mentality as central to its identity.
That makes this much more than a nostalgia concert.
Soul II Soul represents a period when Black British musicians increasingly created sounds that were neither straightforward copies of American soul nor simply extensions of Jamaican reggae.
They were recognisably British, born from the meeting of cultures in London.
Those innovations helped open the way for later generations of British R&B, dance and electronic music.
The Glasgow concert therefore offers the chance to hear familiar hits while celebrating a group whose journey from the sound-system scene to international success forms an important chapter in Black British cultural history.
More Glasgow Listings MORE
Harold Offeh – The Mothership Collective 2:0
Artist Harold Offeh transforms Tramway’s front gallery into a playful science-fiction environment exploring Afrofuturism, identity and the possibility…
Anti-Racist Community Library – Black History Month
Woodlands Community marks Black History Month with a special edition of its Anti-Racist Community Library, bringing together books,…
Black History Month: African Women, Myth and Material Memory
African women, spirituality, folklore and cultural memory are explored through objects in Glasgow Museums’ collections during this specialist…
AfroCaledonia Exhibition – Launch Event
AfroCaledonia opens in Glasgow with an evening celebrating Black history and culture through the work of Black-Scottish creatives….
AfroCaledonia Exhibition – Meet the Artists
The artists behind AfroCaledonia take centre stage for an interactive morning exploring Black identity, intersectionality and creative expression…
Black History Month: Colonialism in Print
Glasgow Museums explores how colonial histories, race and trade have been represented through printmaking in this specialist Black…
LowDown Brass Band
Chicago’s LowDown Brass Band brings a powerful mixture of brass, hip-hop, reggae and soul to Glasgow’s Poetry Club…
An Evening with President Barack Obama
Former United States President Barack Obama comes to Glasgow for a rare live conversation at the OVO Hydro….