TBC introduces… Soulful Sundays: Acantha Lang
New Orleans-born, London-based soul artist Acantha Lang has drawn comparisons to legends like Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight. She joins us for Soulful Sundays, our series of afternoon soul gigs with DJ sets, live music, artist Q&As, and general good vibes.
You’ve described New Orleans as giving you your musical roots, New York as the place where you found your voice, and London as where you became an artist. When did you decide to stay in the UK and build your career here rather than return to the US?
New Orleans is known for blues and jazz, so I was always around music, but it wasn't until I moved to New York that I started singing in nightclubs, singing the blues and really developing myself as a young blues artist. It was the hottest club in New York, like Studio 54 meets burlesque meets Moulin Rouge.
I came to London because the cabaret show opened up here in Soho. They brought me over to MC the club here in London, and when I arrived, I thought, "Wow, this is nice." I thought it was cool that you can jump on the Eurostar and be in Paris in two hours. I fell in love with London, decided to make it my home.
Your sound is often compared with greats like Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, and Chaka Khan, but your music still feels very personal and contemporary. How do you honour those influences without becoming nostalgic?
I think it's very important for any artist to have their sound, have their own voice, be inspired, but also find their voice in the inspiration that they take from the greats. It's a tricky balance, but through the years of just working it out, writing my songs, refining them, I kept refining myself and just going back to the drawing board. I said, "That's just not good enough. I need to work on this."
I looked at what the greats did, but also wanted to define what I wanted to say. I always wanted to write my own songs. I wrote my entire album. I collaborated with a couple of songwriters on a few tracks, but most of the time, all the lyrics and melodies are mine; they are my stories. I want to create my own legacy.
Your Standing On The Shoulders Of Soul Legends series reached millions online. Was there a particular response or moment from that project that surprised you or changed how you viewed your audience?
I think it actually started during COVID, when we were all on lockdown, and we didn't have any gigs. My boyfriend, who was also a guitarist, thought, "What are we going to do while the world is shut down?" We saw a lot of artists live-streaming from their living rooms, so I suggested we should do it. He was like, "No way are we doing that."
Bill Withers had just died, and I wanted to pay tribute to him. My boyfriend said, "Let's just find a Bill Withers song, do an interpretation of it and pay tribute to him like that, but pre-recorded, no live streaming!" We looked at Bill Withers’ catalogue to find a hidden gem, something not many people know. We hit on"Let Me Be the One You Need" from his 1977 Menagerie LP. We did our own acoustic version, just vocals, keys, and guitar, in our living room. The response was so amazing.
That was the start of Standing On The Shoulders Of Soul Legends, a weekly series. We just kept going, and we now have over 103 episodes on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, with over 13 million views. We've covered everything from Nina Simone to Marvin Gaye, Millie Jackson, Otis Redding, and James Brown. And yeah, it really took off.
Beautiful Dreams, released in June 2023, connected with listeners because of how honest and lived-in the songs feel. Looking back now, what do you think that album says about who you were at that moment in time?
The album celebrates its third anniversary next month, wow, that’s crazy. I was songwriting when I was living in New York - some of the songs came out of sessions with some really amazing producers and songwriters there. They were very raw. Songs like "It's Gonna Be Alright" and "Whatever Happened to Our Love", they have a very different sound, but the lyrics and the message were there. I brought them over, but had been sitting on them for a while.
I also met with some songwriters here in London, and along with my guitarist partner, we started putting all the songs together as a body of work. It was very important for me to have my own sound, and it was blues-based. We wanted some soul, we wanted some raw funk in there. That space isn't being represented by a female artist too much. We said, "Let's create our own lane and get that live band sound."
So, we went in as a full band in the studio, recorded live takes, and had it mixed and mastered by Dave Darlington in New York, who just won a Grammy for mixing and mastering Samara Joy's album. He's an old friend of mine. It was just a labour of love, a lot of hard work, but it was beautiful. That's why I named it "Beautiful Dreams".
Is there music in the family, or are you the first to step out under the spotlight?
I'm the first. No music in my family at all, which is crazy, because I feel like it's my calling. I always knew I could sing, even as a little girl, but I definitely had to find my way. My mom was very religious, and she wanted me just to go to church all the time, but I wanted to sing the devil's music, the blues music. She was like, "That’s no career for a young lady being out in the juke joints."
But I'm happy I did, because I love the music that I'm making. It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing to be able to create and write songs, especially when I receive messages from people who listen to the music. I'm blown away by the response and how I touch people in their lives. People say, "My wife is going through pancreatic cancer, and she plays your album to get through." I mean, that's heavy. Wait ‘til you hear the second album!
Can you tell us about the themes that you're going to be pulling on to create the new album?
I'm going to preview some of the new songs during my show, so you'll get to hear some of them then!
I'm thinking the album’s going to be called Ain't That the Truth. It's a phrase that we say down in New Orleans, and the whole premise of it is like, "Wow, this is happening in the world right now, ain't that something, ain’t that the truth."
I grew up in the hood in the 9th Ward in New Orleans. I have those memories sitting in my bones. When I went down to New Orleans, I lost my father last year, and I was staying in an area of the inner city. I was just watching people walk around, broken. I was going through my thing with my dad, grieving, and just watching the world go by, watching all these experiences, and just seeing that the human experience can be so lovely, but it also can be so dark as well. It ebbs and flows with all of us, right? So how do I communicate this through my music?
"Ain't That the Truth" is more like a powerful funk-driven, horn-heavy song about the state of the world. You can try to silence our voices, but we're gonna be heard. It's time for us to rise up and say something. There's a song called "Down in the Ghetto." I always loved the opening of Bobby Womack’s Across 110th Street, how he paints a picture, like "I was a third brother of five," you know, now you want to know what happened, now you're in the story with him. I wrote a song about my father passing and not being able to say goodbye. Another song is called "Make It Through One More Day." It's about waking up in a cold sweat, not knowing what to do. "Am I going to be alright? If I ain't going to be alright, I'll just make it through one more day." So, those kinds of themes – it’s a very, very honest record. I'm really proud of these songs, and I think they're really going to resonate with a lot of people.
What can we expect from your show at The Bear?
I think for me, when people experience my show, I just want them to have a good time. I'm not going to sing "at" you. I'm going to sing the songs and try to connect, and hopefully we can all be in this experience together. I hate artists who feel disconnected because it's all about their ego, and you are somehow privileged to see them live.
I'm a New Orleans girl. We get down, it's all about funky horns and good vibes. I want people to experience a range of emotions. That's what you can expect on the 31st.
Acantha joins us with her band on Sunday 31 May 2026