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Brits GOT Soul, Baby!

Seventy-four tracks making a case that does not need making. British soul has been world-class for forty years and remains almost entirely undocumented.

Brits got soul

The history runs deeper than most listeners realise. Britain's Black communities — Caribbean, West African, and their descendants — built a parallel music economy from the 1960s onward: sound systems, pirate radio, soul weekenders, rare groove nights and specialist record shops, largely ignored by the mainstream press and enormously influential on everything that followed.

What came out of it is a distinct tradition. British soul tends to be cooler in temperature than American, more indebted to reggae and jazz, and less concerned with vocal display. Seventy-four tracks is about the minimum needed to show the range.

What to listen for

Omar's "There's Nothing Like This" is the essential record. Released independently in 1990, it is the founding document of modern British soul, and Omar — who played almost everything on it himself — remains the genre's most respected figure.

Loose Ends appear twice, and they were the first British Black group to top the American R&B chart.

Ephraim Lewis's "Drowning in Your Eyes" opens the set, which is a moving choice — Lewis released one album and died in 1994 at twenty-six in disputed circumstances.

George Michael's "Heal the Pain" and Seal's "Touch" represent the artists who crossed over entirely, and Boy George's inclusion is a reminder that Culture Club were considerably more soul-literate than their image allowed.

D-Influence's "I've Got My Mind Made Up" is the deep cut collectors prize, and Children of Zeus's "Hard Work" is the Manchester contribution — one of the best British soul duos of recent years.

Craig David's "7 Days" is the UK garage landmark, and Raleigh Ritchie's "Bloodsport" the alternative one.

Mahalia, Nao, Duffy and BenjiFlow carry the newer end.

Go deeper

Omar's For Pleasure is the album, and it features Leon Ware and Erykah Badu.

Children of Zeus's Travel Light is the best British soul album of the last decade and almost nobody outside the UK has heard it.

For the history: the soul weekender culture of Caister and Prestatyn, the pirate stations, and the rare groove scene of the mid-1980s are where all of this was built. Very little of it has been written down, which is its own kind of scandal.

Why it lands: British soul spent decades being told it was a copy of an American original, and this run of voices is the rebuttal. The phrasing, the diction, the reference points — all of it is rooted somewhere else, and the difference is the point rather than the flaw.

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