Belinda Magnus OBE
Belinda Magnus OBE (better known as Pauline Black) is a singer, actress and author. She started her music career with the group The Selecter who are credited, alongside acts like Madness and the Specials, for starting the ska revival movement. Black was also a prominent British TV actress starring in programmes like The Bill and Hollyoaks. She was also a radio presenter and a theatre performer. Rolling Stone magazine “Hands down, Pauline Black possessed the best voice that ever graced a 2-Tone release. Blessed with a bewitching soprano and dramatic panache, Black’s voice reached plateaus that made every other musical detail sound like part of a backdrop painted just to set the stage for her entrance”.
1953
Born in Romford, Essex, England
Mother was Anglo-Jewish and her father was Nigerian
1979- Founded the band The Selecter
1982 – The Selecter split up and Black became co-host on the show Hold Tight
1991- She received the Time Out award for Best Actress for her role in the play All Or Nothing at All
1994 – The Selecter reforms
2001- Black, with Jean-Jacques Burnel (The Stranglers), Jake Burns (Stiff Little Fingers) and Nicky
Welsh (The Selecter & Bad Manners) formed and toured as 3 Men & Black.
2004 – Created an album with her band which featured Black, Burnel, Burns, Foxton & Welsh.
2007- Black narrated the BBC Four documentary Soul Britannia.
2017-2018: Joined the Gorillaz on their Humanz Tour.
2022- Black was appointed an OBE.
Pauline Black was born as Belinda Magnus on 23 October 1953 in Romford, Essex. Her biological mother was a teenager and was Anglo-Jewish and her biological father, Gordon Adenle, was Nigerian. She was adopted and renamed as Pauline Vickers and she remained unaware of her true heritage until the age of 42 when she traced her biological mother. Black enrolled to study science at Lanchester Polytechnic, now Coventry University.
Hannah Pool, ‘Pauline Black: Going back to my roots’, Family blog (Guardian, revised 2011) [accessed 4 March 2022]
Coventry Telegraph, ‘How Pauline Black became a 2-Tone icon’, Backbeat Coventry (Coventry Telegraph, revised 2011) [accessed 04 March 2022]
