Labi Siffre

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Labi Siffre (born June 25, 1945 in London ) is a British poet , singer , civil rights activist and songwriter .

Life

Siffre was born to a Nigerian father and a Barbados- Belgian mother. He was the fourth of five children. Siffre grew up in London and at the beginning of his music career lived temporarily in Amsterdam . In 1970 he received his first recording contract and released a total of six albums by 1975. In 1977 he moved to Los Angeles and composed there, but without publishing his own material. In March 1978 he took part in the preliminary decision for the Eurovision Song Contest . However, with his contribution Solid Love , he only reached fifth place. In 1986 he wrote the anti- apartheid song (Something Inside) So Strong after watching a movie in which South African soldiers shot black children. The song became a success and appeared on Siffre's 1988 album So Strong. In March 2019 the song was awarded a silver record . Among other things, it was used for a campaign by Amnesty International . He won an Ivor Novello Award in 1986 for the song . Years later he traced the song back to his personal situation as a black homosexual in Great Britain.

Other well-known songs by Siffres are It Must Be Love (later covered by Madness ), Listen to the Voices and I Got The ... (which is often incorrectly referred to as I Got the Blues ). Eminem used samples from I Got The ... for his song My Name Is . However, Siffre only released these samples after Eminem and his producer Dr. Dre had removed misogynistic and homophobic passages from the text.

Between 1993 and 1997 Siffre published the three volumes of poetry Nigger, Blood on the Page and Monument.

Siffre campaigns for the separation of religion and state and against the supremacy of religions . He is a prominent supporter of the Atheist Bus Campaign , which placed advertising messages on London buses from the end of 2008 to raise awareness of atheism .

His song Bless the Telephone was covered by Kelis in 2014 .

Discography

  • Labi Siffre (1970)
  • The Singer And The Song (1972)
  • Crying Laughing Loving Lying (1972)
  • For The Children (1973)
  • Remember My Song (1975)
  • Happy (1975)
  • So Strong (1988)
  • Man of Reason (1991)
  • The Last Songs (1998)
  • Monument (Spoken Word) (1998)

Literary works

  • 1993: nigger
  • 1995: Blood on the Page
  • 1997: Monument

Web links

swell

  1. ^ UK NATIONAL FINAL 1978. Retrieved May 18, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Music Sales Awards: UK
  3. ↑ Portrait at thenewblackmagazine.com (English), accessed on April 22, 2013
  4. ↑ http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/10/21/anti-apartheid-anthem-is-actually-about-gay-rights-singer-reveals/
  5. ↑ https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/2915/qa-labi-siffre
  6. ↑ atheist busses (English), accessed on April 22, 2013
personal data
SURNAME Siffre, Labi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British poet, singer and songwriter
DATE OF BIRTH June 25, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH London , UK