'A thoroughly enjoyable cultural history, captures the excitement and daring of a music that changed the world for good' Spectator

'A timely, heartfelt and richly rewarding book' Classic Rock



'A fascinating deep dive of a read . . . finally giving Black musicians, who played pivotal roles in the genre, their flowers' Skin

'Entirely essential, thrillingly readable . . . Replete with joy, understanding and glorious noise' Thurston Moore





A reclamation of rock'n'roll for the Black artists who tore up and re-wrote its rules, by musician, arts and culture journalist and die-hard alternative music superfan, Stephanie Phillips.



We Were Here promises to rip up our received history of rock 'n' roll and alternative music and repopulate it with the extraordinary Black artists and influential figures who truly steered its course from the 1930s to the present day, including vital figures Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix, Tina Turner, Betty Davis, Poly Styrene, Bad Brains and beyond. As well as reflecting on why Black people have continued to be drawn to alternative music despite their ongoing ostracization from it by the white mainstream industry, Phillips argues that there would be no alternative music without Black artists, and that its future lies in the hands of Gen Z Black musicians experimenting with the boundaries of what punk, metal, hardcore and indie could be.



Stephanie Philips is a music journalist and musician who writes for the Guardian, Independent, New Statesman, Kinfolk, the Quietus, Vice, Bandcamp and The Wire. She started the Black feminist punk band Big Joanie and played backup for Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney. She is part of the collective behind Decolonise Fest, a festival celebrating punks of colour. Her first book was Why Solange Matters, published by Faber.