Punk Pioneers The Slits Honored During Tribute Concert in New York City Curated by Kathleen Hanna, Tamar-kali

“My people, are we feeling Slitsy?” howled Vivien Goldman to the crowd before the Tribute to the Slits in New York City on April 4. Hosted by the author and musician and “punk professor,” the tribute was part of the American Songbook Series at the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center.

Curated by Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna and Oscar-nominated singer and composer Tamar-kali, the free show reached capacity with a multigenerational audience. Nearly 15 years after the death of the Slits‘ vocalist Ari Up (Ariane Forster) in 2010, the concert highlighted a collection of fresh interpretations of the punk pioneers songs pulled from their 1977 debut Cut and Return of the Giant Slits era and through final album Trapped Animal from 2009.

For Goldman, whose recent book Revenge of the She-Punks: A Feminist Music History from Poly Styrene to Pussy Riot in 2019 documents the entire period of women in punk, the evening was bittersweet. “Tonight is incredibly emotional for me, so please cut me some slack if I get a bit weepy,” said Goldman during her introduction. “Honestly, when I look back on it, I think the Slits saved my life. I was working in the music business, and it was such a rock hypocrisy. Women just couldn’t get through.”

She continued, “And then suddenly the Slits came along. It was like going from black and white into color. I finally had a community. And me and those ladies, the she-punks, we’re friends to this day.”

A compatriot of the Slits and the She-Punk movement, Goldman recalled first meeting Up at a punk dive in the late ‘70s while writing a gossip column for the UK music magazine Sounds and covering reggae and punk for other publications. “I didn’t know you’re so old,” Goldman remembers Up saying to her. At the time Goldman was 24 and the Slits singer was 14 and the two immediately connected over their love of reggae.

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“We went through the walls together,” said Goldman. “These were women trying to create a new sort of sound to express a new sort of society, and it was seriously a mission.”

Up was the “engine of the group,” said Goldman. “And a force she was,” she laughed. “I can tell you that.” Following Up’s death in 2010 at age 48 after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008, the death of X-Ray Spex vocalist Poly Styrene a year later was a “blow to the movement,” added Goldman.

“But as you can see, if something is necessary, it does sustain,” she said. “So, why are we gathered here tonight? Because we need to be Slitsy. That was the adjective we used to use.”

The night was a celebration of the band, their entrance into punk, and experimentation with dub and reggae. “To see the Slits get their due is a very beautiful thing,” said Goldman. “Listening back to the music, I was struck by what an incredibly powerful lyricist Ari was—prophetic. As you listen to these songs you’ll find that they seem to be written about the present day. Sometimes, when I listen to Ari’s lyrics, I find that they give me strength.”

Before the show started, Goldman closed on two of Up’s mantras: “Kill them with love” and “I’m not here to be liked. I’m here to be heard.”

Backed by DJ Mirrisa Neff and the house band, featuring keyboardist Elenna Canlas, guitarist Keyanna Hutchinson, Evan Lawrence on bass, and drummer Muzikaldunk (aka MD), Rachel Dissident and Anna Young kicked off the tribute where it all started, the opening track of the Slits 1979 debut Cut and “Instant Hit.” 

Next, Afropunk artist Dunia Best, a close friend of Up, went back-to-back with the band’s “Shoplifting” and “Ping Pong Affair.” Best also shared that Up once helped deliver her youngest child before adding, “We miss her a lot.”

[RELATED: Nora Forster, Wife of John Lydon, Mother of The Slits’ Ari Up, Dead at 80]

Cleo Reed followed with the earlier punk of “New Town,” while Simi Stone delivered “Love and Romance,” later called a “romantic ditty” by Goldman.

“I wonder if Ari were here tonight, who she would be thinking of,” Goldman said introducing Rachel Dissident on the Slits’ “Number One Enemy,” released on the band’s 1997 compilation In the Beginning: A Live Anthology 77–81. “I think that song got the point across.”

In between hosting, Goldman reminded the crowd about the complexity of the Slits’ songs. “The lyrics are pretty dense and very gritty … unusual time changes, very idiosyncratic. It got more jazzy and more complex as time went on.” She later added, “This was the point when punk lost them.”

Despite a few callouts in the audience, one song that didn’t make the set was the band’s 1979 dub-charged cover of Marvin Gaye’s 1968 hit “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” but Shara Lunon tapped into the band’s more experimental era, delivering “Adventures Close to Home.”

The band’s Return of the Giant Slits era, the Slits’ second and final album before splitting in 1982, resurfaced throughout the night when Ashley Kossakowski continued on a spacier odyssey with “Animal Space.”

“This song is about an extremely close talker or someone who stands a little too close to you on the subway or asks you personal questions,” said Kossakowski. “This song is about drawing boundaries.”

Another longtime friend of Goldman’s and the Slits, New York City musician, singer, and actress, Felice Rosser, who formed her band FaithNYC in the mid’-80s and briefly played in the short-lived band Gray with artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, said the next song made her think about Mother Earth and what the earth sounds like.

“I slowed down and just listened and saw beauty heard the beauty of it,” Rosser said before going into the Slits’ “Earthbeat,” the opening track on Return of the Giant Slits.

Honeychild Coleman also played with the Slits during the band’s tour in 2010, released four years after Up reformed the band with founding bassist bassist Tessa Pollitt in 2006 and released their third and final album Trapped Animal, the Slits first album in nearly three decades. Coleman went into Cut track “Frequent Mutilation” and another written about one iconic punk in the band’s earlier circle.

“Rumor has it this next song is about Sid Vicious, but I ain’t one gossip. You didn’t hear it from me,” teased Coleman before moving into “So Tough,” singing Nothing he does ever makes sense / He is only curious / Don’t take it serious. Before the band formed, Vicious was in the band the Flowers of Romance with the Slits’ guitarist Viv Albertine and drummer Palmolive. Vicious’ former Sex Pistols‘ bandmate John Lydon later wed Up’s mother Nora Forster in 1979; the two were married until Forster’s death in 2023 at 80.

Goldman could be seen dancing at the side of the stage when Reed returned with “Spend, Spend, Spend,” and Rosser stepped on stage again for “Difficult Fun,” sharing another memory of meeting Goldman in London during the ‘70s. “I’ll just never forget that moment,” said Rosser, recalling how they went to a shebeen to see reggae singer Dennis Brown the night they first met. “We went down to this basement and it was dark, and the basement was just throbbing in this heavy way. … That was life-changing.”

Throughout the night, the revolving door of artists moved through deeper and lesser known cuts from the Slits catalo,g including “Weekend Warrior,” before Kossakowski took on Trapped Animal track “The World of Grown Ups.”

Singer and songwriter Alana Amran made her first appearance of the night toward the end of the set with a duo of Slits songs from Giant Slits: “Face Place” and “Improperly Dressed.”

Before the final song, Stone came out to perform one of the band’s “Vindictive,” before an ensemble closed the night with “Typical Girls.”

“To be Slitsy means to be creative and ferociously independent, ready to deal with whatever criticism and aggression society may throw at you and still live with joy,” said Goldman earlier in the evening. “The Slits were defiant and they continued to dance and laugh. Time has gone on to prove their worth.”

Tribute to the Slits, Lincoln Center, April 4, 2025

1. “Instant Hit” — Rachel Dissident and Anna Young
2. “Shoplifting” — Dunia Best
3. “Ping Pong Affair” — Dunia Best
4. “New Town” — Cleo Reed
5. “Love and Romance” — Simi Stone
6. “Number One Enemy” — Rachel Dissident
7. “Adventures Close to Home” — Shara Lunon
8. “Animal Space” — Ashley Kossakowski
9. “Earthbeat” — Felice Rosser
10. “Frequent Mutilation” — Honeychild Coleman
11.”So Tough” — Honeychild Coleman
12. “Spend, Spend, Spend” — Cleo Reed
13. “Difficult Fun” — Felice Rosser
14. “Weekend Warrior” — Shara Lunon
15. “World of Grown Ups” — Ashley Kossakowski
16. “Face Place” — Alana Amram
17. “Improperly Dressed” — Alana Amram
18. “Vindictive” — Simi Stone
19. “Typical Girls” — Ensemble performance

Photos: Sachyn Mital / @sachynmital