We Were Here: A History of Black People and Alternative Music

We Were Here: A History of Black People and Alternative Music by Stephanie Phillips

Da Capo | 368 pages | published August 27th 2026 in the UK; November 17th 2026 in the U.S.

Despite what mainstream media might want you to think, rock and alternative music are not primarily white genres. In her new book, Black feminist punk musician Stephanie Phillips documents the integral role Black artists and fans have played in building and revolutionising the alternative and rock scenes.

It’s easy to buy into the narrative that rock ‘n’ roll and alternative music are mostly for white people, specifically white men. In the 75+ years since rock began, most magazine articles, best-of lists from critics, songs played on mainstream radio, and music history books have lauded white men’s songwriting and performing prowess. Even when we do hear about Black musicians in these music scenes, it’s often through the lens of being an occasional oddity in spaces dominated by white people.

None of this is surprising to Black musicians and fans, of course. When a society is built on the idea of white supremacy, as it is in America and much of Europe, Black people usually get left out of the story. Stephanie Phillips, a journalist and the frontwoman of Black feminist post-punk band Big Joanie, is here to set the record straight with her new book We Were Here: A History of Black People and Alternative Music. When she first got into alternative music as a teenager in the early noughties, Phillips thought there were only a handful of Black alternative artists before that time. After all, she didn’t find too many in the media at the time, and she certainly didn’t see many other Black fans at shows. In fact, with all the societal messages telling her that Black people were supposed to like hip-hop, R&B, rap, or pop — definitely not alternative rock — she writes, “I felt like I was betraying my race and had to keep my love of rock practically a secret.”

When she started conducting research for We Were Here, Phillips quickly became overwhelmed by how many Black musicians she found, “possibly too many to even fit into one book,” she writes. It wasn’t that Black people were absent from the rock and alternative scenes — in fact, they often started much of the musical experimentation that launched these scenes in the first place. It was, of course, that their contributions had been overlooked, under-documented, never supported by labels in the same way as their white peers, and mislabeled by critics and music charts who called them pop or R&B simply because that was how everyone dubbed music from Black artists. “For decades, Black artists were held to higher standards and had to sing harder and dance faster than anyone else to get half the level of respect of any white artist,” Phillips writes. “It is an extension of how Blackness is policed and perceived in daily life: Black people must meet a certain level of exceptionalism before their humanity is validated.”

Phillips dedicates several chapters in her book to stories about the rare exceptions who did break through to larger audiences — such as Jimi Hendrix, Lenny Kravitz, and Skunk Anansie. But where her book really shines is in the rarely-told stories of the lesser-known musicians she unearths while digging through long-buried zines, YouTube videos, and hard-to-find interviews with members of the scene. There’s Betty Davis, whose raw and imperfect voice laid atop heavy blues rock and funk basslines made her tough to categorise in the 1960s. Her lyrics about liberated Black female sexuality allegedly led one big-city NAACP chapter to try to ban her songs from the radio because she was “promulgating a negative image of African American women.” Or A.R. Kane, a duo inspired as much by Jimi Hendrix and the Velvet Underground as they were by jazz legend Miles Davis. Phillips describes their 1986 debut single, When You’re Sad, as “a wash of feedback, jangly indie noise and 1960s pop sophistication” that inspired future Black shoegaze bands. Critics liked the band but always failed to mention their ethnicity, leaving a big surprise for fans who showed up to their shows expecting to see white guys on stage.

Phillips also documents more current events and artists, including Brooklyn-based Afro- progressive hardcore band MAAFA, who are influenced by bassist Flora Lucini’s Afro- Brazilian heritage; the Nyege Nyege music festival in Uganda, where up to 50,000 people gather annually to celebrate and experience outsider African music and culture; and Militia Vox, the black-leather-clad heavy metal vocalist for the all-female cover band Judas Priestess.

What Phillips makes abundantly clear is that you can’t tell the true story of alternative music — whether it’s early rock ‘n’ roll, punk, new wave, emo, metal, indie, hardcore, nu metal, you name it — without talking about all the Black artists who wielded guitars, pounded drums, and belted out lyrics alongside (and often before) their white counterparts. Her book is a significant entry in the ongoing effort to pluck these talented Black musicians out of obscurity and give them their proper due.

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Sarah Evans is an Oregon writer, activist, and rock music-lover who reviews books by and about people from marginalised communities. She has an MFA in nonfiction writing from Pacific University.