Sade, the beautiful half English, half Nigerian vocalist is just one of the personalities celebrated in the book, We Can be Heroes charting the rise of London’s club scene from punk in the late 1970s to the New Romantics in the 1980s...
Who? Helen Folasade Adu OBE, better known as Sade, is a singer-songwriter, composer, and record producer who first rose to prominence in the 1980s. The beautiful and striking half English, half Nigerian is just one of the personalities celebrated in the book, We Can be Heroes, charting the rise of London’s club scene from punk in the late 1970s to the New Romantics in the 1980s.
What? Featuring photography by Graham Smith and writer Robert Elms – two regulars on the scene – with contributions from those including Stephen Jones, Steve Strange and Boy George, the book is divided into five key sections: Punk, Clubbing, The Faces, Fashion and Music. Many of the photographs have never been published before and are taken in the key clubs of the time, from Billy’s and The Blitz, via le Beat Route and Mud Club, to the Dirt Box and the Wag.
Why? Sharing her thoughts in the book, Sade reveals she "never thought of herself as a key player in the scene" but her peers vehemently disagree. Former boyfriend Robert Elms recalls she was "beautiful and striking but there was something about the way she held herself and her attitude. She had a solidarity and a centredness. Whereas, we were all fly-by-nights, she had a deep rootedness. I don't know if it came from Africa or Clacton…She lacked the over the top theatricality that we all went for, in fact she found it distasteful. Whatever she did musically or stylistically would be done with austerity. She represented something more pared down, after all the overt excess of The Blitz."
"Whatever Sade did musically or stylistically would be done with austerity"
Milliner Stephen Jones remembers her as the "the most amazing looking person, even when she was at St. Martin's College a couple of years below me. I can remember seeing her walk into a textile department wearing the most fabulous straw hat with raffia crabs and lobsters all over it. She looked as though she had just walked out of a magazine."
We Can Be Heroes by Graham Smith is published by Unbound.
Text by Laura Bradley
