Bel Documentary Honors Late Singer Beldina Odenyo — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Beldina Odenyo died by suicide in October 2021 at age 31, two weeks after delivering a performance at Edinburgh's Usher Hall that those present called instantly legendary.
- The documentary Bel, directed by Louise Lockwood, aired on BBC Four and draws on Odenyo's teenage video diaries from Kirkconnel and songs she stored on her hard drive in a folder titled "passable demos."
- Leah McAleer, Odenyo's older sister, spent years working independently to release Odenyo's posthumous album and appears throughout the film as a "dignified and humane presence" describing the project as "a futile attempt to bring her back."
- The film details the trauma that shaped Odenyo: she was taken from her mother in Kenya by her father at age six or seven, then endured severe racist abuse as the only Black child at her school in Kirkconnel, including being set on fire and having a chain wrapped around her neck.
- Odenyo performed under the name Heir of the Cursed, which she said came to her in a dream and turned out to translate the Tetela name of assassinated Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba.
- Poet Jackie Kay, ex-boyfriend Lewis Semple, and Scottish singer-songwriter Kathryn Joseph all testify to Odenyo's extraordinary voice, with Semple recalling he was "shaking in my seat" the first time he heard her sing.
Why it matters: McAleer's years of independent work to finish Odenyo's posthumous album now reaches a wide audience via the BBC documentary, which frames Odenyo's mental illness and the racism and exile that shaped her alongside her musical genius — turning private family grief into a publicly available record of a once-in-a-generation voice lost at 31.
Ask SkimNews
