Off the Shelf: We Were Here – Stephanie Phillips

A reclamation of alternative music history, for the Black artists who helped pioneer and shape it. We Were Here rips up our received history of rock ’n’ roll and alternative music and repopulates it with the extraordinary Black artists who helped steer its course. Looking at the role of vital figures from the 1930s to the present day – including Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix and Tina Turner, Phillips argues that there would be no alternative music without Black artists. As Phillips declares, ‘Blackness is inherently punk’, and she celebrates a positive future for alternative music that lies in the hands of Gen Z Black musicians experimenting with the boundaries of what music can be.  

Stephanie Phillips is a music journalist and musician who writes for the Guardian, Independent, New Statesman, Kinfolk, Quietus, Vice, Bandcamp and The Wire. She started the Black feminist punk band Big Joanie and she is part of the collective behind Decolonise Fest.  

This event is part of Off the Shelf: Festival of Words from the University of Sheffield. The full festival programme is available here: https://offtheshelf.org.uk/events/ 

The event is organised by the Off the Shelf Festival. Views expressed at this event do not reflect those of Sheffield Museums.