The London Issue will be distributed exclusively to Living Proof Members. Sent to our members for June, 2026.
Bel Cobain is a London-based artist working across soul, jazz, and alternative R&B. She has built her career independently, operating outside traditional industry systems. Her music is driven by an instinctive approach to writing, focusing on inner conflict and fast- paced city life. For Issue 14 of Living Proof Magazine, she is featured in conversation with Savannah Singh.
So, you mentioned your upcoming single ‘Fucking City’ is an ode to London. You mentioned it taps into a ‘particular type of pain.’ What pain is this?
Loneliness in general, but the secondary story behind the song is about domestic violence. I didn’t want it to have the narrative it usually does — victimhood, evil man, etc. I wanted it to touch on it with more dimension. A friend of mine got blindsighted with abuse and I wrote her story in the first verse, which is very accusational. But with the second verse I wanted to bring in our role as women in the crisis of masculinity. We’ve had to create a hyper femininity in order to protect ourselves and a lot of the time that can manifest into man hating etc. It’s for a valid reason, femicide is a real fucking problem. But we can’t ignore men, we have to bring them to our level of love. The second verse is the mother writing to the victim. You see the cyclical nature of a woman being abused, she has a son but can’t look after him, and so the cycle carries on. I wanted to encapsulate all of the roles within that pattern.
When you write something that vulnerable, whether it’s your lived experience or not, do you feel lighter, or more exposed?
More exposed, but I guess within that, lighter, because I’ve been holding onto this whole EP for so long. I now feel more of a narrator rather than someone who’s gatekeeping things about myself.
‘Fucking City’ has been in the works for 4 years. When a song has existed in multiple versions for so many years, how do you put the stamp on it and decide it’s ready to be out there?