6. Skunk AnansieSecretly

Skin is one of those people that unfortunately the United States didn’t understand. The UK understood it, right? I’m grateful that I could find Skin in my journey because Black girls need to know Skin. That would have told us that we could live in alternative rock and metal, and thrive. This angst. This heavy, hard, Black woman is beautiful and gorgeous and androgynous, and we can have that. I felt like Skin should have been major here, and wasn’t because Skin looked like what Skin looked like. And I needed that as a kid, to say “see myself in this”. 

‘Secretly’ had been in a lot of films, like Cruel Intentions. Her voice is gnarly. It’s so good. It became my gateway drug into her persona. The album is great, but Skin is phenomenal, and that is something that every Black girl during that time needed to see. If Skin came out today it would be completely different, becauseI think she is a pioneer, and I’m grateful to have been able to seek out that and get that information because she is definitely an influence for a lot of the newer age artists out here.