Judging by the number of magazine articles and travel guides declaring Bristol to be the coolest city in the country - and the number of people decanting from hipster suburbs of London down the M4 - there might be something in the theory that Bristol is quite cool.
But it's perhaps not the harbour and the bridge and the hills and the views which make Bristol cool - it's the people. And Bristol does have some pretty darn cool people.
Five years ago, we first tried to do the impossible and bottle that vibe in a single list of the coolest people in Bristol. And, as it's October and another cool Bristol summer is over once again, we're back to try again.
Back in 2017, we instituted that first Bristol Cool List amid much fanfare and some controversy, with these words: "Everything is subjective, and we know this list will be controversial. Most of those on it won't consider themselves cool, many probably won't be happy that they have made the list. Everything is opinion, from who should be on the list, to what your definition of 'cool' is."
The same applies today, even more so - especially that question of the definition of 'cool'. There will be people on this list you think aren't cool. There will be people who you know are cooler than anyone on here, that didn't make it. Probably because they are sooooooo cool that us squares in what is still the virtual Bristol Live offices haven't passed into their orbit.
The only rules are that there are no rules, apart from they must be people (not organisations, clubs or groups), they must either be from Bristol and exuding their coolness somewhere else in the world, or be in Bristol being cool.
And they have to be living: many suggestions gratefully received (and we get loads) often describe the coolest Bristolians who are sadly no longer with us. They will probably be celebrated here, in the Great List of 75 Bristol Legends - the only criteria for entry to that list is that they must be legendary Bristolians who have passed away.
Anyway, by the time of the second Bristol Cool List in April 2019, it had not only expanded to 60, but we had instigated the inaugural Bristol Cool Hall of Fame. We did this because, let's be frank, there are some figures in Bristol who, by dint of their global success and continued coolness, will always be at the top of any run down of the coolest people in the city. It would be like we were perpetually in that summer of 1991 when Bryan Adams was number one in the charts for months with the Robin Hood movie theme tune.
A couple more Bristol folks were inducted into that Hall of Fame with the Third Bristol Cool List in 2020. This was a tough year of course - it was hard for many cool people to remain cool amid a global pandemic. And in 2021, another list followed and a pattern appeared to be emerging. While the positions on the list are entirely arbitrary and mean little, great thought is put into who should be be wearing the crown of the number one spot. Who is, right now, the coolest person in Bristol? Back in 2017, it was FGM activist Fahma Ahmed, in 2019 it was supermodel Ikram Abdi Omar. In the pandemic year of 2020 it was Bristol University's pioneering Covid scientist Prof Christiane Schaffitzel - because stopping a pandemic and saving lives was a pretty cool thing to do, and in 2021 it was Cotham School's cheekiest ex-pupil, Maya Jama.
This year, we've culled the list from 60 to just 40 - we're in a new austere era - and there are a lot of new faces too, along with two more inductees into the Bristol Cool List Hall of Fame. So without further ado, counting down from 40 to one...
40 Kala Chng
Knowle West's creative queen - Makala Cheung is involved in everything going on from Broadwalk to Filwood. Tricky isn't the only music star to come out of Knowle West - Makala relaunched as Kala Chng and has released three albums and is a regular at festivals across Bristol and beyond. She's also one of Bristol's Happiness Champions and is a passionate advocate for her community. Check her out here.
39 Lloyd Kelly
Brought up in Bristol's care system and an advocate of and recruiter for people to become foster carers, Lloyd Kelly is a coolly impressive young man. Still only 24, he captained Bournemouth back to the Premier League earlier this year, and was named in both the PFA player's Championship team of the season and in the EFL team of the year too.
38 Laura Welti
For almost 20 years, Laura Welti has been the voice for Bristol's Disabled people, as part of the Bristol Disability Equality Forum. She's the forum manager, and has spent years working with councils and other bodies. She's been an equalities activist for almost all her adult life.
37 Aisha Thomas
For years, Aisha Thomas was a pioneering teacher in Bristol - one of shockingly few black teachers in the city, rising to the position of assistant principal, and was one of the authors of the One Bristol Curriculum back in 2018. She has now taken what she knows about diversity, representation and education, and is on a mission to teach the teachers, and challenge education and industry to look at their practices around representation. She set up Representation Matters Ltd, and it's a book too, of the same name. Find out more here.
36 Johnny Palmer
There maybe some in Bristol who don't think Johnny Palmer is cool - he's rich, driven with a kind of in-your-face confidence that can rub people up the wrong way. He delights in stirring things up in many different spheres of Bristol's cultural, political and economic life and it's not the cool Bristol way - which tends to be more laid back, non-confrontational or quietly assured. But whether it's leading an illegal swim in the Cumberland Basin, founding the media company Pytch or standing for council, he doesn't do things by halves. But despite all this, he is cool. The man bought the fuselage of a 727 and had it brought to Brislington, turned into a venue and covered in street art. Oh, and he owns Warleigh Weir, one of the most beautiful places in the Bristol area.
35 Tara Miran
A fearless and forthright activist and organiser for her community - whether that's in St Paul's or as an advocate for the Kurdish community in Bristol, or the Kurds fight against oppression in their homelands.
34 Ben Akers
When filmmaker Ben's best mate took his own life, it changed Ben's forever. He made it his mission to get men talking about their mental health, setting up Talk Club, which has grown into a national phenomenon to get men together to talk about... stuff. We'll never know how many lives this has saved. Visit Talk Club's website here.
33 Jaiquon Jones-Clarke
One of the youngest on our list and one to watch - Jaiquon is a working class photographer who cut his teeth in 2021 with Oona Chanfi to create a stunning documentary called 'Roots' for the Creative Youth Network's Exhibition. Now he's made it to the University of the Arts in London - which produced the likes of photographer Rankin.
32 Ben Carpenter
A stalwart of the youth service in Bristol, Ben's Grassroot Communities aims to empower the young people to be the leaders and create and own the youth provision they want to see. They stood on his shoulders to create the Hartcliffe Boxing Club, and now Grassroots is doing something even more pioneering - it's called Activators and it gives life-changing opportunities to young people from marginalised communities across Bristol. Find out more about it here.
31 Travis Alabanza
Named three years ago by the Evening Standard as one of the 25 most influential people under 25 in Britain. Listed on the Forbes30Under30 list and the 'Dazed100' list. The Guardian touted them as the 'future of theatre'. It's to the eternal shame of this Cool List that the award-winning writer, performer and theatre maker Travis Alabanza hasn't made it onto this list before. Perhaps it was because, as many a creative firecracker from this city has found, you have to move to London to do your thing. Travis was always somebody a little different, growing up black and queer in Hillfields. Travis identifies as black, transfeminine and gender non-conforming, and also an artist, writer, theatre-maker, poet, author, playwright, actor, performer, lecturer, speaker and activist.
30 Whiske XMP
In a city full of drill rappers, Whiske XMP is bringing grime back and is possibly the hottest artist in Bristol right now. He's just dropped a single featuring Cool List regular Jay0117, took Krazy's Wordlife show on Ujima by storm recently - check it here - and has a debut album out on October 24.
29 Ed Kear
Standup comedian and actor, Ed is a proud Bristolian currently doing bits in London. You'll recognise him but won't immediately know where from - let me enlighten you. He's been in all those TV shows you love, like Plebs, Ghosts, Dodger, After Ever After, Dead Pixels, Please Help Me and DCI Banks, as well as appearing in big screen, big name movies like Cruella, and The Batman. But even all that isn't the most cool thing about Ed - it was playing a big role alongside the legends that are Mark Rylance and Mackenzie Crook when they resurrected the best play of the 21st century, Jerusalem, set in a West Country wood., and obviously was the only one with a noticibly decent Wiltshire accent.
28 Emily Breeze
For more than ten years her music has charmed people across the world, and they've called it pop noir. A regular on the likes of 6Music, the singer songwriter tours and for the past seven years has been a guest lecturer at BIMM.
27 Miss Jam Tart
The Covid pandemic and the lockdown changed many people's lives, but it gave Hartcliffe's Jamie Rossiter the space to explore drag. As Miss Jam Tart, she began tentatively, doing charity shows as the lockdowns eased, and 2022 has seen Miss Jam Tart become one of the newest and hottest tickets on the drag and cabaret circuit across the country - not bad for someone who gave their first performance online just a couple of years ago.
26 Nimo Ibrahim
The founder of the Bristol Somali Women's Group back in 2015, Nimo is a mum-of-five and a careworker, and has been empowering the often marginalised women from her community, working hard to encourage them to speak up, often against the more conservative voices within her community. You can read more about her story here.
25 Bobby Decordova-Reid
Probably Bristol's top footballer right now, he's part of a Fulham side that is surprising many on their return to the Premier League.
24 Dani Johns
Bedminster comedian who is the resident co-host of Smoke and Mirrors, sets up her own comedy nights to make sure they are fully wheelchair accessible, and is basically a pocket rocket of comedy energy both in the city and in the rest of the country. Check her out here.
23 Alex Scott
The great hope for Bristol football, he's pictured here with the European Under-19 championship trophy which he played a pivotal role in England winning this summer. He's only just turned 19, but seems to have the world at his feet. Footballers aren't automatically cool, but Scott plays with an old-school swagger - he's all socks rolled down, biting tackles and jinking runs. It's no wonder he's the cult hero of Section 82 at Ashton Gate.
22 Joe Joyce
The King of Southmead, Joe Joyce might be heading soon to Ireland but he'll forever be cool no matter where he goes. He makes sure all the international stars that come to the Bristol Bears know what Bristol is all about, teaching each the words to Blackbird, by The Wurzels, before heading back to Southmead to get involved in supporting his community there.
21 Lawrence Hoo
The physical embodiment of the sentiment 'be the change', Lawrence Hoo has expanded from street poet and community activist to educator. With Chaz Golding, he's on a mission to get teachers to teach the history he never was, with the CARGO project. Find out more about it here.
20 Ellis Genge
Already a regular on the Cool List since its inception, the Knowle West boy dubbed the 'Baby Rhino' has all grown up, and come back home. You couldn't have scripted a better start to his return to the Bears from his coming-of-age period at Leicester - scoring a try within minutes of the start of the first match at home to Bath.
19 Tozer
In a city full of street artists, Georgina Tozer is something a little different - a street signwriter. You'll see her work all over the city and she's single-handedly creating a font for Bristol, and you now live in the city she's spelled out for you.
18 Lisa Carter
Lisa Carter was a mum by the time she was 18. She's now a mum of three and the CEO and founder of a company that, in its first year of trading last year, grossed £1.2 million.
She set up Discussion Box, which helps global brands bring together high-level stakeholders for conversations, using a bespoke technology virtual events platform. She's the only black woman leader in this industry and if that wasn't enough, she is the founder and designer of the jewellery brand NIKAO, which has been recently featured by and on Beyonce, Vogue, Forbes, InStyle, Zendaya, Cosmopolitan and others, and launched during London Fashion Week in 2016.
17 Aimee Palmer
Student of the year at SGS College, she was still just 16 when she made her debut in the Women's Super League for Bristol City. A season at Manchester United, and half a year at Sheffield United, Aimee Palmer has been back at Bristol City for more than two years now and, aged just 22, she's the captain and a passionate advocate for women's sport across the city.
16 Jack Ashton
Everyone in BS3 knows him as Jack Lewis, but when he needed a name for the Equity card, he chose his beloved Ashton. You'll know him as Reverend Tom in Call the Midwife, where he met and married one of the stars of the show, Midwife Trixie - actress Helen George.
15 Cleo Lake
Former city councillor and Lord Mayor of Bristol, Cleo is a campaigner, artist, actor and writer, and this year has been one of the driving forces behind the national project, the World Reimagined - you'll see all the globes around the city right now.
14 Han-Noah Massengo
While some footballers, like Alex Scott for example, are cool for what they do on the pitch more than anything else, others are super-cool off the pitch. As a bustling teenage midfielder at Bristol City, Han-Noah Massengo has got a cult following among the fans, who fell in love with his all-action style, enthusiasm and skill when he signed from France aged just 18. But fans will tell you he'll have one game where he seems world class and he'll struggle in the next. Off the pitch, he's easily the coolest footballer in Bristol. While others might play golf, walk the dog or hit the computer games, Han-Noah is something of a fashion model and photographer with an Insta that looks more like the storyboard for a 1970s French art film.
13 Harriet Wood
As Hazard One, she's recognised as one of the world's leading female street artists with a bright, bold and colourful realism.
12 Gamba Cole
While all the other main characters in The Outlaws were played by actors from all over the country, doing Bristolians and their accents with varying degrees of success, Bristol actor Gamba Cole - pictured here helping to launch the new Bristol Rovers kit - was the authentic breakout star.
11 Paul Holbrook
A regular on the Cool List each year, Hartcliffe filmmaker Paul Holbrook continues to win awards and acclaim around the world for his short films.
10 Glyn Fussell
Another Bristolian who was initially too cool for Bristol. From a big working class family, he worked in factories and odd jobs before he took himself off to Perth, came out and returned to London in the year 2000 to become an author, activist and LGBTQ+ icon. He's known as the king of the UK night scene, having co-founded the iconic club night Sink the Pink and the Mighty Hoopla music festival. This year, he's got it down on paper - with a new book called 'Sink The Pink's Manifesto for Misfits'.
9 Ajia Lee Förster
Bristol mum Ajia's family comes from the Skwah First Nation, but miles from home and disconnected with the roots, she wanted to do something to reconnect and lift up her ancestors. So she founded Nafiia, a cultural, creative, arts and fashion brand which showcases First Nation designers and makers.
"I did not grow up knowing my traditional teachings, or my family for many years. That was a part of our trauma and what was taken from us," she said. "So for years I've tried to figure out how someone like me, so far away from home and displaced, can have an impact on cultural knowledge renewal in preservation, giving a voice to these people. So that's when I decided to pass the mic over and build Nafiia. I wanted to build a platform that really represented the people, a space that was worthy of them, their sacred art and their years of dedication."
8 Hayley Hemming
All Hayley Hemming really wants is for her's and other's children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities to get the education and support they are entitled to. As the volunteer chair of the Bristol Parent Carer Forum that's not exactly been straightforward. While the people on this list so far demonstrate the many different possible definitions for the word 'cool', Hayley's is perhaps the most traditional - staying cool in the chaos and crisis and basket case scandal that is the Bristol SEND provision over the past months and years.
7 Charlie Bedford
One of the rules of the Bristol Cool List is that people are cool, rather than groups or clubs or organisations. But really, we should be naming each and every member of the Angels Dance Academy and their world championship winning Dark Angels street dance group. If you haven't watched the Dark Angels fly on the wall documentary series, you really should - it showed just how hard a group of young people, mainly from South Bristol, have to work to be the best in the world. And it is something that Bristol doesn't shout about enough - the best street dancers in the world have come out of the Caters industrial estate between Hartcliffe and Headley Park. That's amazing. The group's founder and leader is Charlie Bedford, from Knowle West, and he's totally cool in his own right, as well as representing them all on this list.
6 Emz
Bristol rapper Emz moved from London to Bristol about ten years ago now, and came of age with a huge breakthrough this year. His massive hit Ready4Dem, a catchy rap over a drum and bass track from Watch The Ride, who comprise three of Bristol’s legendary drum and bass producers, DJ Die, DJ Randall and Dismantle. And then, in the autumn, when the new FIFA23 game came out, there was Emz's banger on the soundtrack. Read all about that here.
5 Shon Faye
Shon Faye has been on the Cool List a few times before, but the writer, editor, journalist and presenter has come back to Bristol from London now and last year authored a breakthrough book - The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice, which has become the handbook, nay bible, of the enlightened trans debate.
4 Aaron Collins
Perhaps the coolest thing to happen in football - any football across the country - this year was the improbable story of Bristol Rovers dramatically sealing promotion by winning 7-0 in the final minutes of the last game of the season. It was truly bonkers. They partied long into the night down the Gloucester Road and, there, as dusk fell, who was perched on a traffic light, above the bouncing crowd, still in his football kit? None other than terrace hero Aaron Collins, who cemented his legend status among the Gas that night. In truth, he already was, with a hatful of goals and assists and a proper connection with the fans. Football supporters love players who feel like they've jumped over the advertising hoardings and are living out your dreams on your behalf. Collins, from Newport, plays like that and, as everyone saw back in May, didn't even have time to get changed before he was back out with the supporters.
3 Yola
Like the past omissions of Glyn Fussell and Travis Abalanza, there's a lot of internal inquiries going on here about why a certain Yolanda Quartey - aka Yola Carter - hasn't featured in this list before. It's not like she left Bristol and then became a global superstar, her journey is rooted here from her days in Bristol band Phantom Limb, her work with Massive Attack and Ginger Wildheart. Back in 2013 she went solo, releasing her first solo EP in 2016. A debut album followed in 2019, and that unique Bristol mix of country soul, R&B and Americana took off around the world. She was making waves before the pandemic, and since the return to normal has established herself as one of the hottest tickets in world music. She's played at Madison Square Garden, been nominated for three Grammy Awards and you'll see her this year playing Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the Baz Lurhmann biopic of Elvis.
2 Stephen Merchant
Stephen Merchant complained once that he was on this Cool List when he'd much rather be on Bristol Live's 'Sexy List' - yes, we did such a thing once in more problematic-in-hindsight times. That sort of showed why he should be on the Cool List, but he's back with a bang now. It's hard to put into words just how good The Outlaws was. While many a TV series uses Bristol as a ready-made backdrop, The Outlaws was a Bristol story, set in the places it was filmed. But more than that, it was intricate, clever, funny, nuanced and filled with such humanity that the next riot will surely be because a third series doesn't get made.
1 Jayde Adams
If Stephen Merchant's The Outlaws was the best and most authentic representation of real Bristol on telly, then Jayde Adams is currently giving it a good challenge on the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing. We'd like to point out that Jayde has regularly appeared on previous Cool Lists, long before the rest of the country knew how great she is.Who knows how long her Strictly journey will continue, but it's not the fact she's there on the biggest light entertainment show in the country, it's the way she's doing it that is so darn cool.
She's combining confidence and realness with a genuine enthusiasm and shock of someone who has dreamed of going on Strictly for 20 years. She's throwing herself into the experience, representing everyone out there who doesn't fit what dancers are 'supposed' to look like, and then taking down the trolls on social media with wit and style.
And don't get us started on her dance for her sister Jenna because we'll start welling up again. When she was first announced on the Strictly line-up, many answered 'who?' in the comments sections, wrongly thinking they were providing a witty put down, while actually betraying their own lack of cultural knowledge or ability to use Google first. In fact, Jayde has been a brightening star up in that there London for a few years - each stand up comedy tour visits bigger venues each time, she's presented shows like the ingenious Snack Masters, and acted in hit shows like Alma's Not Normal. That's why she was on previous Cool Lists - but right about now with her Strictly 'journey' winning the hearts of the nation, she's probably the coolest person in Britain, not just Bristol.
Bristol Cool List Hall of Fame
In 2019, we instigated a Hall of Fame for all those Bristolians who would be, every time, prety much top of this list - the people who are the architects of Cool Bristol, the godfathers and godmothers of Bristol being the cool city it is today.
More people have been inducted since, and the Hall of Fame list as of 2021 includes:
Knowle West boy Tricky; Massive Attack's Rob del Naja and Grant Marshall; singer Elizabeth Fraser; Portishead and Beak musician Geoff Barrow; street art pioneer John Nation; street artists Inkie and Banksy; Googlebox's Mary and Marina (RIP Mary), and the 3Ts - Tremaine, Twaine and Tristan Plummer; and Bristol's biggest music fan (Big) Jeff Johns.
The two new inductees into the Bristol Cool List Hall of Fame are:
Joe Talbot
The lead singer of post-punk Bristol rockers Idles.
Maya Jama
TV presenter, model and Queen of Ashley Down, Maya topped the Cool List in 2021 and has just been named as the new host of the next Love Island series.
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