Hollie Cook

Hollie Cook describes her sound as tropical pop, a supple and sensuous vocal approach that fuses contemporary pop structures with echoes of classic reggae. After participating in the Slits’ mid-2000s reunion lineup, she issued her self-titled debut album in 2011 under the guidance of producer Prince Fatty. Youth handled production duties on her 2018 release Vessel of Love, while she joined forces with Ben McKone and Luke Allwood of General Roots to co-produce 2022’s Happy Hour; a dub counterpart, Happy Hour in Dub, followed in 2023.

Her lineage offered an early immersion in music: father Paul Cook drummed for the Sex Pistols, mother Jeni Cook sang backing vocals for Culture Club, Boy George served as her godfather, and David Bowie once spent an afternoon as her babysitter. Born in 1987, she departed school at sixteen to pursue studies in art and make-up design, yet her trajectory shifted in 2006 when Ari Up revived the Slits and enlisted Paul Cook to produce and perform on the new material. After Paul introduced his daughter to the group and Up heard her sing, she was invited to join, contributing backing vocals and keyboards to the EP Revenge of the Killer Slits (2006) and the album Trapped Animal (2009) before the band dissolved in 2010 following Up’s death.

Teaming again with Prince Fatty, Cook unveiled her self-titled debut in 2011, which drew strong critical praise. The following year, Ian Brown of the Stone Roses asked her to open one of the band’s highly anticipated British reunion concerts before a crowd of 75,000; speaking later to journalist James Lachno, she recalled, “The atmosphere was immense, and people didn’t boo or ignore us. I wanted to go anyway, so the fact I got to play was ridiculous.” Prince Fatty issued a set of dub mixes drawn from that debut in 2012, and Cook returned with her second album, Twice, in 2014.

She lent her voice to projects by artists as varied as Duran Duran and Quantic’s Flowering Inferno. In 2017 she joined the roster of Merge Records, which issued her cover of the Carpenters’ “Superstar” as a Record Store Day 7-inch. Vessel of Love, produced by Youth of Killing Joke and the Orb, appeared in 2018 and reached the top of Billboard’s Reggae Albums chart; later that year she also covered Shanks & Bigfoot’s “Sweet Like Chocolate” and appeared on recordings by the Orb, Silent Poets, Gardna, and others. Her fourth album, Happy Hour, arrived in June 2022, followed in 2023 by Happy Hour in Dub, which featured contributions from Jah9, Dennis Bovell, and Joshua Waters Rudge of the Skints.