Michael Hann

Could she be the new Sade? Celeste at Union Chapel reviewed

Plus: a lesson in stagecraft from the fabulous Nadine Shah at the Barbican

Celeste at the Union Chapel, delivering her serotonin hits of euphoria wisely and sparingly 
issue 24 July 2021

Some years ago, when I was the music editor of a newspaper, I called a number of historians of black music asking if any of them could write about why the audience for new music made in the styles of classic soul, blues or jazz was almost entirely white.

The people I asked, some of them august commentators on African-American culture, offered a few suggestions: black music was historically co-opted and deracinated by the white music industry so comprehensively that black artists just didn’t want to go back there; black music has always been about progression rather than revival, and it is simply of no interest to look back; the legacy of black music has been so badly served by the people who ran the music industry that it is simply harder to uncover (witness, perhaps, the fact the film Summer of Soul is only coming out now, not in 1969).

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