The Gospel of Cleo Sol
A look at the UK artists' work, love for soul, and what it means to all of us.
Grown Folks Business: an exploration of the Black artists, sounds, and aesthetics of Millennials refusing the generation wars but building a life of nostalgia worth returning to.
Everything during the pandemic was uncertain, I was living in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Atlanta with two other queer people in a house that we affectionately called The Mango House. All of us were on the edge of ourselves, we had no idea what the future held and were scared to leave the house while we sanitized our groceries and made late-night runs to Krispy Kreme for lemon doughnuts.
Amid that first year of the pandemic we all coped differently, the common denominator of our ease was that we played music at all times in the house and one of the gems of that time was finding Cleo Sol's first album A Rose In The Dark. Sol's debut album became one of the signals throughout the house that any three of us needed alone time and space as we learned of loved ones passing or were just deep in the throes of the end of ourselves. Falling in love with an album alongside other people is a special kind of gift and that debut project resonates with me as the soundtrack to what kept me sane and for many like myself as Cleo Sol was a needed companion in a time of panic.
Cleo Sol, the British soul vocalist from West London with Jamaican and Serbian heritage is a child of the Windrush Generation that sits sonically at the melding of the UK's Lover's Rock boom of the 70s and the Neo-soul era of the 90s that has clear footprints in her solo and collective works. She grew up with her father playing Bob Marley & the Wailers alongside Stevie Wonder, Erykah Badu, and Jill Scott. I grew up listening to my mother play (the legendary) Quiet Storm radio and listening to India Arie & Floetry non-stop which makes Sol's discography all the more at home for me.
The history of Black British Soul and R&B was never known to me. Still, the decades of suppression of Black British R&B makes acts like Sade, Floetry, Estelle, and Cleo Sol worthy outliers and reflective of the decades of black women soul artists such as (Louisa Mark, Ginger Williams, and Joy Mack) that we (Black American) listeners haven't been exposed to.
Since those pivotal moments with Sol's work during the pandemic lockdown, Sol's music has been my place of return when I can't express my grief. With her debut concert in the US a week ago, I felt that feeling of comfort about Sol's music come back to me, along with all of the nostalgia about when and where Sol's voice has kept me, as I watched my friends go to the show and return full of hope.
Though Sol has done very few interviews, it was lovely to learn more about her history as a live performer in her teenage years and the importance of that skill when she spoke to Zane Lowe at the end of 2024: "When you go to a show, there's a moment, that moment is so important... When I'm watching a show, I cry and I connect because I'm like, oh, they feel it, they feel what they're singing about, so I feel it too."
I sadly, didn't get to attend the concert but the reviews of the NY and LA shows have talked extensively about how healing the shows have felt which feels accurate but it made me wrestle with how my friends and I's calling to her music rests in the spirituality and simplicity of the silky music and less to do with healing but more so companionship on dark times. Sol speaks often in her music and publicly about her returning to her faith in god and also being a student of Erykah Badu and The Fugees who are led by a deep relationship to Black nationalism. Sol's music meets a sweet spot of Black spirituality that allows the listener to choose the path of transformation that soothes them. Sol and her longtime collaborator and partner in life, producer Flo, have a love for resonance and expertise of tone with gratitude for the responsibility of the craft that speaks for itself. As the UK vocalist spoke to in her time with Zane Lowe, "I just know it's bigger than me, and that's why I get emotional sometimes because…I know I'm being used as a vessel"
Sol has also evolved, even though her discography remains heavily under reviewed she remains steadfast in honing her instrument. From Sol's 2020 debut to her most recent release Gold at the end of 2023, we see an artist opening up about her friendships, her relations to God developing, and the shadows of herself that play well with her experimentation with Funk and Bossanova. She falls in line with the work of Badu in that way or as Daphne Brooks calls it being a child of "that which is past and that which is still to come" in her review of Badu's Mama's Gun in 2016.
It is rare to grow up with an artist such as Sol whose introspection and dedication to live instrumentation has been a leading force in the contested power of R&B in Black music these days. Thankfully she is the door for many American listeners to begin learning more about the UK's overlooked R&B scene.
When I think about it…on my best day, I am playing Sol's 2019 single Sweet Blue on repeat. "D-D-D-Darling, Darling please keep your head up to the sky" she sings on patient piano chords and wispy stacked harmonies that add a carefree element to a song about self-love "It's beautiful outside/And the sky just seems so blue, ooh" songs with that weightless quality are equally matched with the heavy ballads throughout her discography. Songs like "I Love You" a song with resonating piano chords for a song about unmet needs and dark uncertainty about risk in love. Sol's strengths of simple lyricism (that she is shifting in her later works) pair well with Flo's poignant production. The duo do well as faithful companions together and alongside other collaborators such as members of Sault alongside artists Michael Kiwanuka, Little Simz, Chronixx, and Jack Peñate.
The music that felt like a kept secret during the worst moments of my late twenties continues to be a balm as I continue to hopefully make better mistakes as I age. Sometimes, I don't need church, a prayer, or a friend telling me I'm right, most times, I just need a voice of affirmation that reminds me that my feelings of uncertainty can hold as much space as the joy on any given day. Sol's work reminds me that I can move through moments of self-doubt, especially when I don't know what the next day looks like, and for that, I'm endlessly grateful.
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