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Music Matters
Why Solange Matters: Why Music Matters
The dramatic story of a musician and artist whose unconventional journey to international success was far more important than her family name.
'Why Solange Matters is a significant and sober treatise on popular music . . . This book is more than necessary.'
THURSTON MOORE
'The author's prose sparkles . . . This is a book about what freedom could look like for Black women.'
CALEB AZUMAH NELSON, OBSERVER
'A love letter to quirkly black creatives . . . [Phillips'] vibrant writing reminds us how Solange lit "the flame of creativity" within many Black women.'
gal-dem
Growing up in the shadow of her superstar sister, Beyoncé, and defying an industry that attempted to bend her to its rigid image of a Black woman, Solange Knowles has become a pivotal musician and artist in her own right.
In Why Solange Matters , Stephanie Phillips chronicles the creative journey of Solange, a beloved voice of the Black Lives Matter generation. A Black feminist punk musician herself, Phillips addresses not only the unpredictable trajectory of Solange's career but also how she and other Black women see themselves through the musician's repertoire. First, she traces Solange's progress through an inflexible industry, charting the artist's development up to 2016, when the release of her third album, A Seat at the Table , redefined her career. With this record and, then, When I Get Home (2019), Phillips describes how Solange has embraced activism, anger, Black womanhood and intergenerational trauma to inform her remarkable art.
Why Solange Matters not only cements the subject in the pantheon of world-changing twenty-first-century musicians, it introduces its writer as an important new voice.
'A rich portrait of Black artistry.'
THE WIRE
'Phillips writes with clarity about why Solange's work matters, exploring issues of cultural appropriation and black feminism along the way.'
MOJO
MUSIC SHORT BOOKS ABOUT THE ARTISTS WE LOVE
'Why Solange Matters is a significant and sober treatise on popular music . . . This book is more than necessary.'
THURSTON MOORE
'The author's prose sparkles . . . This is a book about what freedom could look like for Black women.'
CALEB AZUMAH NELSON, OBSERVER
'A love letter to quirkly black creatives . . . [Phillips'] vibrant writing reminds us how Solange lit "the flame of creativity" within many Black women.'
gal-dem
Growing up in the shadow of her superstar sister, Beyoncé, and defying an industry that attempted to bend her to its rigid image of a Black woman, Solange Knowles has become a pivotal musician and artist in her own right.
In Why Solange Matters , Stephanie Phillips chronicles the creative journey of Solange, a beloved voice of the Black Lives Matter generation. A Black feminist punk musician herself, Phillips addresses not only the unpredictable trajectory of Solange's career but also how she and other Black women see themselves through the musician's repertoire. First, she traces Solange's progress through an inflexible industry, charting the artist's development up to 2016, when the release of her third album, A Seat at the Table , redefined her career. With this record and, then, When I Get Home (2019), Phillips describes how Solange has embraced activism, anger, Black womanhood and intergenerational trauma to inform her remarkable art.
Why Solange Matters not only cements the subject in the pantheon of world-changing twenty-first-century musicians, it introduces its writer as an important new voice.
'A rich portrait of Black artistry.'
THE WIRE
'Phillips writes with clarity about why Solange's work matters, exploring issues of cultural appropriation and black feminism along the way.'
MOJO
MUSIC SHORT BOOKS ABOUT THE ARTISTS WE LOVE
256 pages, Hardcover
First published April 20, 2021
22 people are currently reading
636 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
March 6, 2023
i love solange and she Definitely Matters but this book was a frustrating read. it’s saturated with both unnecessary granularity and overly broad generalizations, going from painfully long passages dedicated to explaining who well-known musicians like björk and billie eilish are in order to make obvious analogies, to all-too-brief summaries of what i think are the most fascinating periods in solange’s life (like her childhood in texas and her stint in rural idaho, for instance). this latter Choice to over-generalize appeared to be in service of the author weaving in her own experiences of growing up in the UK and finding herself in the british punk scene, which just felt a bit tacked-on and a bit Beside The Point to me. (to ME!)
overall, i found this book quite unfocused and repetitive, but there were a few interesting takeaways, with my personal favourite being the chapter on solange navigating the racist mid-2010s indie rock scene during her true era. 2-2.5*
overall, i found this book quite unfocused and repetitive, but there were a few interesting takeaways, with my personal favourite being the chapter on solange navigating the racist mid-2010s indie rock scene during her true era. 2-2.5*
December 29, 2025
I love how Solange gets her flowers as the ICON that she is. Solange has shifted the culture just as much as her famous sister. It must be nice to be God’s favourite!
I loved this issue of Why Music Matters, what an inspirational pick. I read each page and felt validated. I really value all of Stephanie Philips contributions to the universe as well from her band Big Joanie to her writing here, Black women really stay flo! We really will change the game just standing up and telling the truth!!! and yes folks are gonna feel it, they have no choice! And if they get too froggy they might really feel it because today ain’t like it was yesterday! And the real ones know what I mean. This book is the moment. Solange is a forever mood.
This was a marvellous effort and a marvellous read. 10s across the board!
I loved this issue of Why Music Matters, what an inspirational pick. I read each page and felt validated. I really value all of Stephanie Philips contributions to the universe as well from her band Big Joanie to her writing here, Black women really stay flo! We really will change the game just standing up and telling the truth!!! and yes folks are gonna feel it, they have no choice! And if they get too froggy they might really feel it because today ain’t like it was yesterday! And the real ones know what I mean. This book is the moment. Solange is a forever mood.
This was a marvellous effort and a marvellous read. 10s across the board!
September 21, 2022
Solange matters.
February 5, 2022
One for music fans, definitely one for all Solange fans. “Why Solange Matters” is a book that takes a deep dive to the impact that the musician has made to popular culture today. From her childhood, music career and creative development, the reader is taken on a journey through a truly analytical lens into the polymath, multi-hyphenate and artistic icon that is Solange Knowledge.
Stephanie Phillips uses her words and research as a magnifying glass to form her theoretical take on Knowles lived experiences. As well as intertwining her own personal life events and memories as a Black feminist punk musician and music journalist to really showcase why Solange matters in this biography/cultural analysis.
A must read for anyone who is interested in the waves a musician can make in their industry and beyond. Addressing themes such as race, class, feminism and landmark moments in the African American community, such the rise of BLM and how that plays into Solange’s development into the person we know of today.
I’d been waiting to get my hands on this for a while. So it could have been the battle of a reading slump (life), or the fact there were moments where the heavily descriptive text lost the essence of the book for me towards the end.
I didn’t love it, but it’s still a good read nonetheless, so give it a go. Get comfortable, grab a glass, then load up a Solange playlist where you can really get into the zone of why Solange is relevant to today and not just Beyoncé’s baby sister.
3.6*
Stephanie Phillips uses her words and research as a magnifying glass to form her theoretical take on Knowles lived experiences. As well as intertwining her own personal life events and memories as a Black feminist punk musician and music journalist to really showcase why Solange matters in this biography/cultural analysis.
A must read for anyone who is interested in the waves a musician can make in their industry and beyond. Addressing themes such as race, class, feminism and landmark moments in the African American community, such the rise of BLM and how that plays into Solange’s development into the person we know of today.
I’d been waiting to get my hands on this for a while. So it could have been the battle of a reading slump (life), or the fact there were moments where the heavily descriptive text lost the essence of the book for me towards the end.
I didn’t love it, but it’s still a good read nonetheless, so give it a go. Get comfortable, grab a glass, then load up a Solange playlist where you can really get into the zone of why Solange is relevant to today and not just Beyoncé’s baby sister.
3.6*
May 9, 2021
A really beautiful book that skillfully weaves academic and journalistic summary of Solange's career and individual works, while also nodding to the author's own experiences of the key themes of race, punk rebellion and taking up space as a black women in the same alternative music communities that don't always recognise diversity as much as they would like to preach. Would heavily recommend this to all music fans, whether they're familiar with Solange's work or not - it really pulls together a lot of the pivotal talking topics of the moment in an accessible, fluid writing style. Heading off to play 'A Seat At The Table' for the millionth time now!
January 3, 2022
In the vast expanse of popular music, I’ve been aware of Solange (I don’t really fit the expected Solange demographic), mainly through 2016’s A Seat at the Table which I confess sat in my field of vision in two frames. In the first, it was the widely shared, industry/commentariat-driven image of the younger Knowles’ companion album to her older sister’s Lemonade, released earlier in the year. In the second, and based on the few times I’d listened, it seemed to me to sit in a much longer tradition of Black texts of cultural resistance where the cross-references to other artists and genre along with the spoken word components and story-telling that ran from the late ‘60s Black consciousness/Power sounds through Lauren Hill, Erykah Badu and others to continuing struggles in the 21st century. More immediately, I also kind of but not clearly associated it with D’Angelo’s 2014 Black Messiah as his response to the struggles in Fergusson, Missouri over the killing of Michael Brown – but the form and politics of the two albums were so different the association was hard to pin down. But as a relative outsider to that world of African American music and life, for the most part I confess that Solange mattered as the overshadowed little sister of a mega-star, but then I’m a late middle aged white guy in provincial England.
Stephanie Phillips makes an association with D’Angelo, in passing, for A Seat at the Table as being albums of an era and sensibility (along with Kendrick Lamar, Janelle Monáe and others), and builds a much more nuanced and complex sense of Solange, premised on the certainty of the title – it’s not ‘does Solange matter?’ by ‘why Solange matters’ – we know she does, it’s not in dispute, despite the seeming assertions of some. In Phillips’ case Solange matters on two fronts.
First, she is a composer, musician and avante-garde artist working across genre and media, who after kicking against the traces of her label’s restrictive view of a young Black woman musician in the early 2000s found her voice through stylistic and conceptual engagements and dialogue with Indie bands, choreographers, designers, visual artists and more, all grounded in home-town Houston’s vibrant local music scene. Philipps draws parallels with Björk, Billie Eilish and Kate Bush in terms of their place in the industry as independent artists crafting their own paths while drawing on diverse influences that disrupt expectation. This is a Solange and a mattering that many of us can see and recognise through close attention to music videos, liner notes and other accoutrements of the industry.
The second mattering is the Solange who speaks to Black women – in this case, a London-based, Wolverhampton-raised punk band guitarist. Much as I easily see and get the first Solange, this is one who is beyond my frame of reference, and must forever remain so: as empathetic as I can try to be, the affective relations that Phillips and other Black women can have with Solange’s music, as shaped by the social relations of their lives (and musical engagement is a profoundly affective/emotional thing), mean that the best I can get is recognition that it matters – a lot. And that’s fine.
Phillips weaves these two modes of mattering smoothly into her discussion, with the added depth of drawing on her family background and experience as an out-of-expected-place Black woman, where in Britain Blackness continues to mark Otherness, where women in punk have long been seen as outsiders, despite PolyStyrene, The Raincoats, The Slits, Joan Jett and the entire Riot Grrrl presence, with Black women as even more marginalised. This music industry experience grants a level of recognition (for readers) and options for our insight that might otherwise be lacking in a less personalised account, and is well supplemented by interviews with others whose engagement extends her affective Black-woman reading into other spheres.
As a result, this impressive piece of music writing grants us insight to important audiences, shifts the all too common focus on production in music writing to highlight consumption, and grants we outsiders important insights to many ways that Black women as audiences engage with both a specific text (there is a heavy focus on A Seat at the Table) and Solange more generally. I’ve started to hear the album and other parts of her oeuvre that I know in a different way. It’s a cracking read.
Stephanie Phillips makes an association with D’Angelo, in passing, for A Seat at the Table as being albums of an era and sensibility (along with Kendrick Lamar, Janelle Monáe and others), and builds a much more nuanced and complex sense of Solange, premised on the certainty of the title – it’s not ‘does Solange matter?’ by ‘why Solange matters’ – we know she does, it’s not in dispute, despite the seeming assertions of some. In Phillips’ case Solange matters on two fronts.
First, she is a composer, musician and avante-garde artist working across genre and media, who after kicking against the traces of her label’s restrictive view of a young Black woman musician in the early 2000s found her voice through stylistic and conceptual engagements and dialogue with Indie bands, choreographers, designers, visual artists and more, all grounded in home-town Houston’s vibrant local music scene. Philipps draws parallels with Björk, Billie Eilish and Kate Bush in terms of their place in the industry as independent artists crafting their own paths while drawing on diverse influences that disrupt expectation. This is a Solange and a mattering that many of us can see and recognise through close attention to music videos, liner notes and other accoutrements of the industry.
The second mattering is the Solange who speaks to Black women – in this case, a London-based, Wolverhampton-raised punk band guitarist. Much as I easily see and get the first Solange, this is one who is beyond my frame of reference, and must forever remain so: as empathetic as I can try to be, the affective relations that Phillips and other Black women can have with Solange’s music, as shaped by the social relations of their lives (and musical engagement is a profoundly affective/emotional thing), mean that the best I can get is recognition that it matters – a lot. And that’s fine.
Phillips weaves these two modes of mattering smoothly into her discussion, with the added depth of drawing on her family background and experience as an out-of-expected-place Black woman, where in Britain Blackness continues to mark Otherness, where women in punk have long been seen as outsiders, despite PolyStyrene, The Raincoats, The Slits, Joan Jett and the entire Riot Grrrl presence, with Black women as even more marginalised. This music industry experience grants a level of recognition (for readers) and options for our insight that might otherwise be lacking in a less personalised account, and is well supplemented by interviews with others whose engagement extends her affective Black-woman reading into other spheres.
As a result, this impressive piece of music writing grants us insight to important audiences, shifts the all too common focus on production in music writing to highlight consumption, and grants we outsiders important insights to many ways that Black women as audiences engage with both a specific text (there is a heavy focus on A Seat at the Table) and Solange more generally. I’ve started to hear the album and other parts of her oeuvre that I know in a different way. It’s a cracking read.
April 29, 2021
If author Stephanie Phillips had any doubt as to whether the world needed a book on Why Solange Matters, she got her answer when she started to tell people she was working on one. "For a majority of white people," Phillips writes, "a quizzical look would appear on their face. Solange? Are you sure you don't mean Beyoncé?"
No, she meant Solange — whose biggest fan, after all, is her elder sister in the tight-knit Knowles family. Imagine saying you were writing a book about John Lennon and getting a confused look in response: are you sure you don't mean Paul McCartney? No. Related, but not the same.
Solange matters deeply to Phillips, and after spending years as a fan of Solange and as a Black musician herself (the British author founded the band Big Joanie), Phillips was well aware that a large number of white people have failed to appreciate the artist's importance.
Phillips writes that one of the things she loves most about Solange is that the artist follows her own muse: "Solange truly is the embodiment of Black girl freedom that Black women spend a lifetime striving to achieve."
I wrote about Why Solange Matters for The Current.
No, she meant Solange — whose biggest fan, after all, is her elder sister in the tight-knit Knowles family. Imagine saying you were writing a book about John Lennon and getting a confused look in response: are you sure you don't mean Paul McCartney? No. Related, but not the same.
Solange matters deeply to Phillips, and after spending years as a fan of Solange and as a Black musician herself (the British author founded the band Big Joanie), Phillips was well aware that a large number of white people have failed to appreciate the artist's importance.
Phillips writes that one of the things she loves most about Solange is that the artist follows her own muse: "Solange truly is the embodiment of Black girl freedom that Black women spend a lifetime striving to achieve."
I wrote about Why Solange Matters for The Current.
May 13, 2022
For months I put this book off, always choosing something else even though I kept it in my Currently Reading list just to remind myself to read it. Well, the wait was worth it... this book was fantastic reading. It was like having your friend put an album on and say "just listen to this" while letting you get fully immersed before explaining the historical and cultural context, and through that, explaining their love for the music and the artist. Savored this one.
Read
September 26, 2022"Phillips makes a convincing case for the singer-songwriter Solange as one of our most important and ambitious chroniclers of Black womanhood. Phillips, a musician who plays in the Black-feminist punk band Big Joanie, draws amply from her own experience navigating mostly white musical spaces to trace Solange’s fraught history with—and radical defiance of—the music industry." — Sophia Stewart
https://www.theatlantic.com/books/arc...
https://www.theatlantic.com/books/arc...
May 24, 2023
One of my favorites that I’ve read so far. The author was able to tell two biographical stories, her own and Solange’s.
If you read this listen to Solange’s music along the way which helped me understand the journey, she’s been on with her self-discovery.
Solange Matters
If you read this listen to Solange’s music along the way which helped me understand the journey, she’s been on with her self-discovery.
Solange Matters
November 22, 2022
Interesting book, particularly in how it offers insight to Black women, the Black experience, BLM, as well as Solange and the music industry in and around 2016.
A Seat at the Table, her landmark album, both forecast and reflected the times of BLM, an indicator of Solange’s place as a true artist.
(Even as a 50-year-old-plus white dude) I have long grooved to her music. This book gave me a richer appreciation of it and an eye-opening view of why Solange “matters.” I moved Seat at the Table higher in my list of fav records of all time.
It’s not a music biography per Se, yet rather a cool angle to look at the changing times and to further assist people like me to understand them.
A Seat at the Table, her landmark album, both forecast and reflected the times of BLM, an indicator of Solange’s place as a true artist.
(Even as a 50-year-old-plus white dude) I have long grooved to her music. This book gave me a richer appreciation of it and an eye-opening view of why Solange “matters.” I moved Seat at the Table higher in my list of fav records of all time.
It’s not a music biography per Se, yet rather a cool angle to look at the changing times and to further assist people like me to understand them.
May 11, 2023
More biography of Stephanie Phillips than I particularly needed/wanted. Also, I was confused by the target audience, so much surface information (the number of times FUBU is explained for example, my God). In my mind, the type of person who's interested in Solange doesn't need Kendrick Lamar explained etc.
August 28, 2022
too much about the authors personal life and the British music scene. Not enough about Solange and her life besides what you can find on wiki
December 8, 2022
3.5
Stephanie Phillips, a member of the band Big Joanie, goes into detail about her relationship with Solange's music. Compared to her sister, Solange has always been the more avant garde one who does not follow her sister's pageant trained image so it was fascinating getting to know her and her musical influences more. This was a nice and detailed look at Solange's career and discography. I would describe myself as a casual fan but I still learned a lot about her (I didn't know anything about her parents and their careers. I thought it was very interesting that her mother put Solange and Beyonce in therapy from a young age to help them adjust for fame and celebrity without ruining their relationship). While some people would describe Solange's later work as too similar, I appreciate the song by song recap that examines the lyrics and influences in it. The writer also discusses audience reception for her albums, from the lackluster attention her debut got to her hipster appeal for True to the Black listening parties for A Seat at the Table. I appreciated this book and hope it makes more people understand her.
Stephanie Phillips, a member of the band Big Joanie, goes into detail about her relationship with Solange's music. Compared to her sister, Solange has always been the more avant garde one who does not follow her sister's pageant trained image so it was fascinating getting to know her and her musical influences more. This was a nice and detailed look at Solange's career and discography. I would describe myself as a casual fan but I still learned a lot about her (I didn't know anything about her parents and their careers. I thought it was very interesting that her mother put Solange and Beyonce in therapy from a young age to help them adjust for fame and celebrity without ruining their relationship). While some people would describe Solange's later work as too similar, I appreciate the song by song recap that examines the lyrics and influences in it. The writer also discusses audience reception for her albums, from the lackluster attention her debut got to her hipster appeal for True to the Black listening parties for A Seat at the Table. I appreciated this book and hope it makes more people understand her.
August 17, 2021
Why Solange Matters is a book that rigidly sticks to its title argument and definitely makes the case.
The past few biographies I've read and reviewed on here, I remark on how the biographer tends to be a little too in love with their subject for comfort. The same is true for Phillips here, but she gets around that by making no illusions that this is a biography. Part personal reflections on the impact of an artist, part music criticism, part Black culture discussion, part industry journalism, this book really has only a sliver of biography , covering the big moments in Solange's life but mostly paying attention to her development as an artist and musician with a focus on the music itself (in particular A Seat at the Table). It's not a complete look at Solange, but it never really aspires to be either.
The past few biographies I've read and reviewed on here, I remark on how the biographer tends to be a little too in love with their subject for comfort. The same is true for Phillips here, but she gets around that by making no illusions that this is a biography. Part personal reflections on the impact of an artist, part music criticism, part Black culture discussion, part industry journalism, this book really has only a sliver of biography , covering the big moments in Solange's life but mostly paying attention to her development as an artist and musician with a focus on the music itself (in particular A Seat at the Table). It's not a complete look at Solange, but it never really aspires to be either.
February 19, 2025
I thoroughly and genuinely enjoyed this appreciation for Solange by another black artist. Solangeis seen in so many ways and I feel like I was seen in my adoration and support of her art as a human and her and all her art forms. Solange matters because she is authentic in who she is and expresses her authenticity in such a divine, unapologetic and black way. Stephanie Phillips did an amazing job covering this muse. In many ways, reading this made me remember who I am as an artist and what encourages me to live through my art as a black woman.
September 10, 2024
2.5*
I didn’t think it would be so hard to enjoy a book about an artist I love 😬
Some really obvious things were really over-explained, and other less clear subjects completely glossed over.
I also would have loved if the book ended on why Solange really matters, instead of anecdotes about the writers’ own band…
Maybe I’m a hater lol, but this one let me down.
That being said, I did learn some cool facts about Solange’s inspiration and influence, as well as her director work.
I didn’t think it would be so hard to enjoy a book about an artist I love 😬
Some really obvious things were really over-explained, and other less clear subjects completely glossed over.
I also would have loved if the book ended on why Solange really matters, instead of anecdotes about the writers’ own band…
Maybe I’m a hater lol, but this one let me down.
That being said, I did learn some cool facts about Solange’s inspiration and influence, as well as her director work.
February 13, 2022
Music Book the Fourth of the 21/22 Reading Season etc. etc. etc.: Why Solange Matters by Stephanie Phillips
I came into this as a Big Joanie fan, pretty ambivalent about Solange. I loved (and still LOVE) 'Cranes In The Sky', but aside from that, I was extremely Not Fussed about her - even having to listen to Seat At The Table in work on a near-weekly basis didn't win me over. However, I'm happy to report that I am now a fully-paid member of the Solange fan club, having bought 2019's When I Get Home on vinyl as a result of this book. Which I imagine is one of the things Phillips was hoping would happen when she set out to write the book (I mean, not about me specifically, but about people in general, maybe? Who knows!)
Anyway! Dead interesting, intersectional writing which is halfway between a biography and a cultural criticism piece. Great.
I came into this as a Big Joanie fan, pretty ambivalent about Solange. I loved (and still LOVE) 'Cranes In The Sky', but aside from that, I was extremely Not Fussed about her - even having to listen to Seat At The Table in work on a near-weekly basis didn't win me over. However, I'm happy to report that I am now a fully-paid member of the Solange fan club, having bought 2019's When I Get Home on vinyl as a result of this book. Which I imagine is one of the things Phillips was hoping would happen when she set out to write the book (I mean, not about me specifically, but about people in general, maybe? Who knows!)
Anyway! Dead interesting, intersectional writing which is halfway between a biography and a cultural criticism piece. Great.
July 7, 2021
Only the best writing about one of the best. Great!
Read
February 8, 2022Read this for class - not rating it.
February 27, 2022
so good! gave a really great historical setting of pop culture/music of the past 20 years
July 10, 2022
Taking a deep dive into Solange’s history was a lot of fun, and I appreciated the author’s unapologetically Black (and punk!) perspective on her story.
June 18, 2024
Yayyyyyy
September 19, 2024
stephanie is so real for loving solange and her music so much she wrote a book about her
December 27, 2024
Redundant for most of it but the album reviews and the author's British black experience were the highlights
October 8, 2025
3.5 stars!! Nice to read a non-fiction for a change and learnt a lot I didn’t know about Solange.
April 4, 2024
An ode to all the weird black girls!
Beautiful exploration into the music of Solange from the beginning of her career. Although I don’t understand all the musicy technical terms, I got a sense of clarity as to why Solange took the artist direction she did while reading.
It also highlights black diaspora in a phenomenal way, noting black British and African American history- linking it to Solange’s work and paying homage to all those great black women musicians before her.
I also really enjoyed the author’s perspective throughout, I couldn’t imagine it being written better.
It oozes the true purpose of art expression- FREEDOM!!
Beautiful exploration into the music of Solange from the beginning of her career. Although I don’t understand all the musicy technical terms, I got a sense of clarity as to why Solange took the artist direction she did while reading.
It also highlights black diaspora in a phenomenal way, noting black British and African American history- linking it to Solange’s work and paying homage to all those great black women musicians before her.
I also really enjoyed the author’s perspective throughout, I couldn’t imagine it being written better.
It oozes the true purpose of art expression- FREEDOM!!
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews