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The Seven Kings Hotel, Ilford - home of the famous "The Lacy Lady" soul music club The View from Gants Hill I never lived in Romford, the UK soul heartland, but for a short period in the late 1980s I lived adjacent, in Gants Hill. As a twenty-something aerobics instructor who spent most of their life clad in lycra, I was obsessed with the high-energy disco and soul that dominated my end of the 1980’s Essex soul scene. The 80s Romford club scene was worlds away from my central

By David Kent The Trap of Knowing it All We all live in a world surrounded by images of perfection (and I don’t just mean body image on social media!) It’s one of the enduring myths of the creative professions – that works of art (paintings, novels, plays, songs, even musicals!) spring fully formed from someone’s mind. As a musical theatre writer, I would argue that whether you’re Lord Lloyd Webber, Stiles and Drew, or Stephen Sondheim, the key to creativity is vulnerability.

By David Kent Today’s a milestone: I was able to search using the phrase “Break the rules – Rochelle Sherona” and stream our new release on YouTube music (and add it to my “Liked” songs!). This might not sound like a big deal to everyone, but I can assure you that to me it’s everything! We’ve all worked so hard to get this far – and we’d never have managed it without the support and encouragement of the gang at Expansion Select. Meet the Voices of Soul Mates Up front and cent

The first scene of “Soul Mates – the musical” takes place with the girls rehearsing in their bedroom, and as I was thinking about how the Soul Mates soundtrack evolved, I was struck by the fact that my creative process starts in a similar way – in a room on my own. Writing songs for the musical’s concept recording For “Soul Mates – the musical” I knew I wanted to achieve two goals – a) to write pop songs that would stand alone outside the musical, and b) the songs should prog

by writer and composer, David Kent How it all began Two years ago I had a vision of three young women starting a girl group in their bedroom, inspired by the soul music that they were passionate about. I remembered only too well what it was like to be on the verge of adulthood in the late 1908s, and I remembered how passionate I was about the UK soul scene. I devoured it all, from Whitney Houston to Millie Jackson, and from Luther Vandross to The Temptations. It seemed only n