VERO Amplify: Bel Cobain

CLASH continues its collaboration with VERO True Social spotlighting emerging talent via their Amplify series, offering insight into the creative forces driving the next wave of homegrown performers.

Previously, the spotlight was on Tottenham Songbird Miraa May, it now shifts to East London artist and botanist Bel Cobain. Cobain is a rootsy, organic storyteller rejecting the prevailing status quo. Inspired by radical rulebreakers like Fela Kuti and Jill Scott who amplify messages of equity, kinship and the heady delirium of love, pain and heartache, Cobain is coolly disassociated from the frills and frenzy of the industry today.

She made her debut in 2018 with the lo-fi lilt of ‘Mint (These Lines)’, breaking through the proverbial saturation with ‘Introverted Stoner’ in 2019 – a collaboration with fellow languid poet Lex Amor followed in 2021 cementing her place within the progressive soul and jazz scenes. Since then she’s expanded her vision by integrating the revolving sounds of her band; in this this act of communal and creative exchange as a live ensemble, Cobain truly comes alive.

Earlier this year, Cobain released double-single, ‘Leader’ and ‘Unsafe House’, deftly moving between mood music and poetic styles, all the while retaining a beguiling presence and steely calm in her vocal delivery: the former is an amalgam of evocative Latin rhythms and afrobeats, a call to surrender to the ebbs and flows of love; the darker, moodier ‘Unsafe House’ tackles conditioning and ancestral trauma, as gauzy percussion builds an aural smokescreen of ambiguity.

With more new music on the horizon, Cobain promises to gently guide the listener into her inner sanctum, a place where they can experience the fullness of themselves and challenge pre-existing modes of thinking.  

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As part of VERO Amplify’s Deep Dives 5 interview, the East Londoner reveals the film, music and literature that have shaped her creative instincts. Cobain also performs an acoustic rendition of ‘Unsafe House’, filmed at the Clash Studio.

Tune in below….

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