Cleo Sol, one of soul music's most precious voices, has amassed a collection of spellbinding, mainstage-worthy songs. But at the same time, the British singer-songwriter has become just as known for her aversion to the spotlight as her music's ability to attract it. She's been compared to other R&B alchemists like Sade or D'Angelo for being so characteristically aloof. Descriptions of Cleo usually run the gamut from "enigmatic" to "reclusive" because of how rarely she performs. The difference, though, is that her presence is heard and felt everywhere.
Let's be real. There's very little rarity in music right now. That's by design. It's because of the business plan: Write an album, record the album, release the album, promote the album, tour the album. It's a capitalist formula that works well. It generates millions; it wins Grammys. But how boring. How safe. How ironic and antithetical to music's free-flowing, expressive purpose for the soul.
So, when an artist rejects that formula to instead focus on art as a message from a higher power, and to share the message only when ready, attention must be paid.
Cleo is such a rarity. She has carefully managed her career by always prioritizing the music itself. Since her ethereal Winter Songs EP in 2018, she's shared four solo albums, each more expansive and heart-opening than the last. After years of anticipation from her stateside fanbase, the artist made her New York City debut in the best way possible: On her own terms.
On March 23, with the promise of spring in the wind, a sold-out crowd of over 5,000 packed into Radio City Music Hall dressed in their Sunday's best. Everyone in the iconic venue knew they were about to witness the singer's first U.S. solo show ever. They knew they were about to be taken to church.
When Cleo emerged from stage right to greet her congregation on Night 1, it was in a plum bodycon dress, a flowing, waist-length ponytail and stilettos. She quickly abandoned the heels for the sake of comfort, spending the rest of the night barefoot, literally grounding herself in the moment.
Inside the warmth of Radio City, an 11-piece band, including five background vocalists, created a balanced, enveloping wall of sound to carry Cleo's gospel through the space. Uncompromised with a back track, the audience received every note Cleo gifted with reverb and clarity, as if they went from her diaphragm to Heaven, then floated back down through the rafters. Fans ready with Kleenex knew the energy of the night would be a safe, cathartic one, a place to exhale and shed tears.
Ask any fan what makes Cleo Sol's music stand out and the answer will undoubtedly include the word "healing." Her lyrics, even when simple, hold a medicinal, somatic quality. Her arrangements mash up jazz, soul, reggae and funk as if all four genres were thrown into a pestle at perfect ratio, producing the most potent dosage. Her most popular tracks, whether bouncy or somber, maintain a bpm around or under 100, a range close to the resting human heart rate. Her music allows you to stop and catch your breath, to exist in the emotion of the moment.
For the evening at Radio City, Cleo opened with her hero's journey on "Rose In The Dark" ("I prayed so hard I thought I'd lose my mind") then "When I'm Your Arms," stretching out her own limbs to embrace the energy of the crowd. Later in the night, reggae roadman Chronixx appeared as a special guest, dueting with Cleo on "Shine Your Light" off the same album that first introduced so many to Cleo's quiet genius.
On 2021's Mother, the 35-year-old immortalizes her transition into motherhood, determined to break patterns of emotionally stunted parenting and cherish the blessing of new life. The album is a melodic spin cycle of gratitude, sadness, frustration, sacrifice, happiness and love. "The train never stopped / Never had time to unpack your trauma," she sings, presumably to her own mother, on "Don't Let Me Fall." "Pass the burden on
Sweep the troubled life / Drink the hurt away / I know the pain," she empathizes on "23." "Thank you for sending me an angel straight from Heaven / When my hope was gone, you made me strong," she testifies on "Heart Full of Love."
For the live rendition of "Heart Full of Love," Cleo and her background vocalists arranged stools into a semi-circle and harmonized with precision, allowing Cleo to play with vocal runs throughout the chorus.
That voice – dulcet, silky, unmistakable – has been heard on hit shows like Insecure and Barry. And aside from her solo work, Cleo has become the main vocalist of SAULT, an equally enigmatic, UK-based outfit and helmed by producer Inflo, Cleo's husband and music producer. As a group, SAULT tends to move in the shadows rather than at shows, but has dropped 11 studio albums and two EPs since its debut in 2019. Clearly, the material is there. The work is being done. But still, her call to the public altar has never been a hurried one. That's the thing about channeling God through music, it can't be determined by a business calendar. By definition, it's about divine timing.
In 2023, the timing was right. Cleo surprise released two albums within the month of September, Heaven and Gold. Together, the projects soundtracked the autumnal equinox with jazzy optimism. On "Reason," one of the standouts from the double feature, Cleo quotes Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." As she performed it for the first time in New York, the entire crowd almost drowned her out, loudly reciting the words back to her.
It was the 2023 releases that urged new listeners to go back to her older discography, boosting songs off Rose In The Dark significantly on TikTok and Spotify and propelling her to bigger stages like this. At Radio City, Cleo briefly left her pulpit and walked down an aisle of the venue barefoot, parting a sea of cellphones and smiling faces. As a cross between an affirmation, a hymn and a lullaby, she sang "Know That You Are Loved" in unison with the audience. Cleo performed the song in the same fashion during her viral Royal Albert Hall show last year, getting close to the people, experiencing the energy of the moment with the audience. "I was super nervous, but it was more like adrenaline," she remembered in a recap video. "Seeing everyone's faces, we was just all there together and it was beautiful."
As the crowning moment of last night's show, Cleo made a point to reach out and touch fans' hands as she ascended the aisle and hugged some admirers who were visibly moved by her music and her presence. It's these points of connection that made the night not just a concert, but a balm.
With three successful sold-out nights in New York and a Los Angeles show at the Hollywood Bowl to follow, Cleo Sol finally coming to America is the earned pay-off for connecting people through music at her own pace. It proves she's not so enigmatic or averse to public performance. She is simply intentional — intentional with the good word she shares, and how and when she shares it.
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