Book Review: Skin - It Takes Blood and Guts (2020, Simon and Schuster)

Written: 22nd June 2025

With The Painful Truth, Skunk Anansie’s new album released just a few weeks ago, it served as a reminder to finally take It Takes Blood and Guts down from the shelf where it had been sitting for far too long.

Written with Lucy O’Brien, It Takes Blood and Guts charts Skin’s journey from growing up in Brixton to becoming the vocalist of one of the most distinctive British rock bands of the last thirty years. The shifts between O’Brien’s prose and Skin’s direct voice are noticeable at times, but the book remains focused, sharp, and consistently engaging. This is not a celebrity memoir full of scandal or gossip; it is a story about becoming yourself, about what it takes to grow and persevere when no one else expects it of you and about standing your ground when the world prefers you silent.

The opening chapters are some of the strongest. Here we learn more about Skin growing up in Brixton, the sense of frustration, of not quite fitting in, and the realisation that life was not going to come to her unless she went out and found it. These sections are written with honesty, not overwrought or unnecessarily dramatic. It is simply a portrait of someone starting to understand their worth. The process of finding her voice, both in a literal sense and as an identity, runs through the whole narrative, and by the time Skunk Anansie forms, the reader is fully with her on that journey.

One of the most engaging parts of the book is the way Skin writes about race, particularly her experience as a black woman in the overwhelmingly white British alternative rock scene of the 1990s. These moments are not angry outbursts; they are plain, lived reality. The racism she faced was sometimes casual, sometimes direct, and always something she carried with her. Those reflections give weight to her lyrics and explain much of the drive behind her performance style. The book balances the point well, not labouring it but making it impossible to ignore.

The formation of Skunk Anansie is described with the kind of energy that matches their sound. There is no suggestion that success arrived easily. Everything feels like it was fought for, step by step, gig by gig. The section on the band’s headline slot at Glastonbury in 1999 is a highlight, both for the drama of the moment and for how perfectly it fits with the sense of a band forcing the world to take notice. Even with that success, the underlying theme remains; they were never supposed to win, and yet they did.

For fans of the band, the insights into individual songs are some of the book’s strongest material. There are several occasions where there is significant detail about lyrics, the writing of songs such as Selling Jesus and Weak, and the reasons why those early albums landed as they did. As with many autobiographies, there is a tendency to give the early days more focus, with the later years of Skunk Anansie’s career covered more briefly. That is not unusual, but it does leave the balance weighted towards the first part of the band’s story. What comes through clearly, though, is how much her bandmates mean to her. Ace, Cass, and Mark are not treated as background characters; they are part of the whole, and that unity still defines how Skin talks about the band today. Furthermore, whether recounting the smallest gig, the high of headlining Glastonbury in 1999 or the tragedy at the Pukkelpop Festival in 2011 (where a storm that was truly terrifying led to the death of five people), what is also clear is how much she values the band’s fans - each and every one of them.

Where the book feels lighter is in its treatment of Skin’s personal life. She herself addresses this, writing, “Of course, I have not totally spilled the tea. Some delicious little cookies are just for me – for this book was not supposed to be a list of loves won or lost, but a reflection on the blood and guts I needed to get here.” Although not everything is revealed, there are still some harrowing moments shared, and what stands out most is how inspirational she is. Every setback, whether personal or professional, seems to have made her stronger, and what emerges is the portrait of someone who, through sheer determination, carved out the life she wanted and deserved. It is impossible not to admire the person who comes through these pages.

What could have come across as namedropping - meeting Mandela, a friendship with Lemmy, sharing a stage with Pavarotti -  never does. There is always a sense of genuine admiration in these moments, a feeling that Skin herself still carries that same disbelief that someone from Brixton could know these people. That self-awareness never leaves the writing, and it is one of the things that makes the book work so well. Whatever success she has achieved, inside she is still that girl from Brixton - and always will be.

It Takes Blood and Guts is not a perfect autobiography — but no autobiography ever is. No single book can contain an entire life. What matters is that what is here feels honest, thoughtful, and purposeful. Anyone with even a passing interest in Skin, Skunk Anansie, or the journey of a working band rising against the odds will find it a worthwhile read. I should have picked it up sooner. I am pleased I finally did.