"We're taught to be ashamed of our accent and where we're from": Meet Big Special, the Black Country duo blending the blues, hip-hop and rock with beautiful fury

Big Special with a dog.

Things the West Midlands has given the world: Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, Steel Pulse and The Specials, Duran Duran, Napalm Death… And let’s not forget the Industrial Revolution. But does the place get the respect it deserves? 

“No way,” says Big Special frontman Joe Hicklin. “It’s the most important industrial powerhouse in the country, if not the world, but creatively and culturally we’re downtrodden. We’re taught to be ashamed of our accent and where we’re from. We’re not the north, we’re not the south, we’re the forgotten middle.”