My Sade Photographs

My name is Paul Cooke I was given this name by Epic Records in 1984 when they released the first Sade 12" Single and it said on drums Paul Cooke. My actual name is Paul Cook but possibly the record company didn't want everyone to think that Paul Cook from the Sex Pistols played the drums? I co-founded the group Sade in 1982 with fellow Hull musicians Stuart Mathewman and Paul Denman after we had all moved down to London to seek our fame and fortune. Subsequently we met Helen Adu a backing singer at the time and amateur fashion designer well actually fashion model then. She was singing in London band's Pride that we joined and out of that band's demise emerged Sade as the hippest band in London at the time. With our model of a singer Helen she was finally offered a solo recording contract in 1983 by CBS records and eventually an OBE from the Queen for the bands achievements. I was the drummer and whilst I feel my role was important as a driver for Ms Adu taking her to the rehearsals and hairdressers to get her signature plait stitched on. In the scheme of things I was just the drummer you know the guy always last to leave the stage and first to arrive. However I had another emerging talent at the time in between coming up with the drums for Smooth Operator. I had bought an Olympus Trip camera and I was documenting everything around me. It was very odd for all concerned as whilst Helen Adu was used to fashion photography and we had the concept of the paparazzi. At the time I would take photos of everything and everyone and this was rather an odd preoccupation. It is this collection of photographs that forms the basis of this book and the more that I pour over the old negatives with a scanner the more I am taken aback by the photographs I shot. Posting these photo's in 2021 on social media to Sade fans I just got so many wow's and likes that I thought lets curate a dedicated book just of these Sade photo's as they are so unique. Remember this in context nobody went around taking photos of people in social spaces in those days very rarely and if they did they had masses of great gear and called themselves professional. As I am somewhere on the autism spectrum myself I think this would partly explain this oddity and penchant for taking photographs of people in everyday settings. So I hope you enjoy this collection and my annotations that offer some context of the setting and those involved at the time.