SEPTEMBER 2025 ISSUE
A sneaky peek of just some of what is in the September 2025 issue – OUT NOW!
LEDISI
Ledisi on the line from LA – and she’s warming to one of her favourite subjects: how underappreciated Dinah Washington was and remains, and how she’s going to do her damnedest to put that right. Which is why she’s just recorded an entire album of songs that Washington made famous.
“There are only five people on my wall at home: my mom, my great aunt, Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone and Dinah,” asserts Ledisi. “Those are my people. I always promised myself in my career that I would pay them tribute, so with this album I’m continuing to complete my circle… ”
HOLLIE COOK
It’s almost unthinkable that a former member of the UK’s best-known and most outrageous all-female punk band, The Slits, should call herselfs ‘Shy Girl’, but Hollie Cook has done exactly that on the title track of her latest album.
“Well, this is the thing,” she says, shortly before headlining a show at Lewisham’s Fox & Firkin that has two other notable UK women reggae singers, Aleighcia Scott and Eva Lazarus, on the same bill. “I’m this strangely introverted human being who, for some reason, chooses to throw themselves onto a stage in front of an audience. It’s this weird duality that I have as a performer, but the lyrics of Shy Girl just came to me and the whole process was very instinctive… ”
BRIAN JACKSON
A confident, charismatic front person in a band is priceless. A sprinkle of charm, wit and humour in the cauldron of a live performance can grow a fanbase as much as excellent music. Brian Jackson knows that all too well, though he was too shy for a role in the spotlight. Now after some 50 years as an artist he is willing to embrace it.
“I was quite comfortable in the background as long as somebody wanted my music to be heard,” reveals the softly spoken 72-year-old New Yorker, who plays flute and piano as well as singing. “But there came a point where I had to figure out a way to promote myself – so I prepared notes and all kinds of things to say in between songs. I got on stage and forgot all that… ”
LILA IKÉ
It’s been six years since we put Lila Iké on the front cover – not because she had an album out, since her breakthrough EP My Experience was still some way off, but in recognition of her singular talent. It was already apparent that the then 25-year-old singer from Christiana, a rural community in Jamaica, had something different. Protoje thought so and signed her to his In.Digg.Nation label, home of early hits such as Where I’m Coming From and Not Another Word.
She and her future mentor had met briefly through a friend back in 2015, but it took another two years of touring Kingston’s open mic sessions and posting things online before he contacted her via social media. Lila had two other female artists, Sevana and Koffee, for company after joining In.Digg.Nation, and would soon be adding the likes of Jah9, Chronixx, Kabaka Pyramid to her list of new friends.