Labi Siffre

Claudius Afolabi "Labi" Siffre (born 25 June 1945) is a British singer, songwriter, musician, and poet. Siffre released six albums between 1970 and 1975, and four between 1988 and 1998. He has published essays, the stage and TV play Deathwrite, and three volumes of poetry: Nigger, Blood On The Page, and Monument.

Early life and education

Claudius Afolabi Siffre was born as the fourth of five children at Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital in Hammersmith, London to a British mother of Barbadian–Belgian descent and a Nigerian father. Siffre was brought up in Bayswater and Hampstead and educated at a Catholic independent day school, St Benedict's School, in Ealing, west London.^[1] Despite his Catholic education, Siffre has stated that he has always been an atheist.^[2]

Musical career

Siffre played jazz guitar at Annie Ross's jazz club in Soho in the 1960s as part of a Hammond organ, guitar, drums house band.^[2]

He released six albums between 1970 and 1975. In the 1970s he released 16 singles, three of which became hits: "It Must Be Love" (No. 14, 1971) (later covered by and a No. 4 hit for Madness, for which Siffre himself appeared in the video); "Crying Laughing Loving Lying" (No. 11, 1972); and "Watch Me" (No. 29, 1972).^[3] In 1978, Siffre took part in the UK heats of the Eurovision Song Contest. He performed his own composition "Solid Love", which placed fifth of the twelve songs up for consideration at the A Song for Europe contest. Additionally, he co-wrote the song "We Got It Bad" performed by Bob James, which came tenth.

Siffre came out of self-imposed retirement from music in 1985, when he saw a television film from Apartheid South Africa showing a white soldier shooting at black children.^[4] He wrote "(Something Inside) So Strong" (No. 4, 1987)^[3] and released four more albums between 1988 and 1998.

Different parts of Siffre's 1975 track "I Got The..." were sampled in popular hip hop music songs in the 1990s, most notably in the 1999 Eminem single "My Name Is". As a result of the song's newfound fame, it was finally released as a single in 2006.^[5]

Personal life

Siffre met Peter John Carver Lloyd in July 1964. They remained together until Lloyd's death in 2013, having entered a civil partnership in 2005, as soon as this was possible in the UK.^[2] In 2014 Siffre appeared on the BBC Radio 4 series Great Lives, championing the life of British author Arthur Ransome. Siffre said that the Swallows and Amazons books had taught him responsibility for his own actions and also a morality that has influenced and shaped him throughout his life.

Discography

Covers

• Olivia Newton-John covered "Crying Laughing Loving Lying" in 1975 on her gold-certified MCA album Clearly Love. Olivia and Labi's paths have crossed more than once over the years, as illustrated by the fact that Labi and Olivia duetted on a live version of her number-1 pop hit "You're the One That I Want".
• Madness covered "It Must Be Love" in 1981. The song reached Number 4 in the UK charts and Number 33 in the U.S. in 1983. Labi Siffre also made a cameo appearance in the music video.
• "(Something Inside) So Strong" was covered by Kenny Rogers in 1989 (and became the title track to a hit album). The song was also covered by Vanessa Bell Armstrong in 1988 and again by a host of gospel artists as a tribute to Rosa Parks in the mid-1990s. It was covered by "eternal" in 1994 as part of their EP Crazy. In late 2009 it also featured in the hit BBC comedy Gavin & Stacey, where it was adapted into a Welsh chapel christening ceremony.
  • The Flying Pickets covered the song in their 1992 album The Warning.
  • Michael Ball also released a cover of the song in 1996, which reached Number 40 in the UK.
  • Rik Waller, while a contestant on Pop Idol, reached #25 in the UK Single Charts with the song in 2002.
• Kelis covered "Bless The Telephone" for her sixth studio album Food in 2014.
• RJD2's song "Making Days Longer", from his album Since We Last Spoke, is a cover of Siffre's "Bless the Telephone", from The Singer and the Song. Siffre is credited as writer of the original song in the liner notes.
• Blank & Jones covered "Down" in their 2007 Chillout album Relax Edition Three.
• Joss Stone covered "I Got The..." on her sixth album The Soul Sessions Vol 2.
• Rod Stewart covered "Crying Laughing Loving Lying" on his 1995 compilation Handbags & Gladrags (Mercury UK).
• Move4Parkinson's Voices of Hope Choir covered "Something Inside So Strong" in April 2013 to commemorate World Parkinson's Day.^[6] The song reached Number 1 in the Irish R&B iTunes chart.

Samples

• Fatboy Slim sampled Rosetta Hightower's cover of Labi Siffre's "A Little More Line" (from his 1970 debut album Labi Siffre) for the song "That Old Pair of Jeans" on Fatboy's 2006 album Why Try Harder,
• Kanye West used a sample of "My Song" in "I Wonder" on his album Graduation.
• Jon Kennedy used a sample of "Bless the telephone" (from his 1971 album "The Singer and The Song") in "Tell me how feel" from the album "We are just waiting for you now" Thru Thoughts, 2001.^[7]

Bibliography

References

External links

• Labi Siffre in Q & A with "New Humanist" magazine
• Labi Siffre's own web site
• The Argotist interview
• Something Inside So Strong, Soul Music, BBC Radio 4
• Arthur Ransome, Great Lives, BBC Radio 4