POC Music

Kele Okereke interview excerpt from The Guardian "Kele Okereke, on the other hand, knows a lot about conflict. There are his issues over home and race - the 25-year-old grew up in Essex but was born in Liverpool, to Nigerians who came to the city in the late-Seventies to study. Mum is a midwife, Dad a molecular biologist. He was 'saddened' by the struggles of his parents, with their strong accents, 'in a system that is institutionally prejudiced'. No, Okereke will say with some vehemence, he is not proud to be British. But nor does he consider Nigeria, which he last visited when he was 14 (his strongest memories are of begging on the streets and police corruption) as somewhere he belongs.

There are his ongoing concerns about personal safety. As a black teenager growing up in Essex he 'always felt something nasty could happen in the pub'. On the streets of Bethnal Green, where he now lives, he feels that racist aggravation is, daily, a heartbeat away.

There are his tensions over religion - he was raised in a devout Catholic household and was only able to stop attending church when he left home, aged 20. 'And that's absurd,' he says. 'I never saw the sense in going to this building once a week and sitting there for an hour bored out of your wits to hear someone pontificate. Then to go back to your life during the weekdays and be as mean-spirited as everyone else...'

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And then, most problematic of all, there are Kele Okereke's issues with sexuality. During the many interviews Bloc Party conducted during 2005, as their debut album Silent Alarm went from critical rave to million-selling commercial hit, from Mercury nominee to NME's Album of the Year, the subject of whether Okereke is or isn't gay was the pink elephant in the room. In a musical form that is usually beerily, boorishly white, male and heterosexual, Okereke was a refreshingly different kind of indie icon. The possibility that he was not just unusual but unique - a black, gay role model for indie kids - meant that for many fans the focus seemed necessary rather than just prurient. Nonetheless, just as he hated being reduced to 'black guy in indie band', he refused to be drawn either way on his sexuality.

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Harsh realities are also rammed home on other new songs. The words to 'Where is Home?' begin at the funeral of Christopher Alaneme, the black teenager stabbed in small-town Kent last April. Okereke describes him as a cousin, although they weren't related by blood; their mums, both Nigerian, were very good friends. Okereke says that ultimately the song is about the fostering, by right-wing newspapers, of a fear of 'The Other'. That is, black youth in hoodies. And how that then means opportunities denied.

'I just feel that every non-white teenager will know what I'm talking about when I say that certain avenues in this country are closed to you. Whenever I walk into a pub in London I feel frightened. There are certain activities that are still more predominantly white.' He and his flatmate, a white Austrian girl, have been abused by bigots who thought they were a mixed-race couple. The multicultural melting pot, Okereke concludes, is unworkable."

Martha Reeves and The Vandellas - (Love is Like a) Heatwave  Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were not always Motown stars. In fact, Martha, who was working as a solo act, took a secretarial job with producer Mickey Stevenson just to get her dainty foot in the door. This unpaid gig led to back-up singing assignments from Stevenson for Martha and her former singing mates, Rosalind Ashford and Annette Beard, most notably on Marvin Gaye’s earliest hits. Recognizing their potential, the group was signed to a Motown contract in 1962. 

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