Kele Okereke

Kelechukwu Rowland Okereke (born 13 October 1981 in Liverpool) is a British musician, singer and guitarist. Okereke is the frontman and lead singer of the rock band Bloc Party and has also been active as a solo artist under the stage name Kele since 2010.

Live

Youth

Okereke was born in Liverpool in 1981 and grew up in a Catholic igbo-Nigerian family in London. His mother worked as a midwife, his father was a molecular biologist. While studying English at King's College London, he met his future bandmate Russell Lissack. After moving out of home in 2001, he made the acquaintance of Gordon Moakes and Matt Tong. Together, the four formed the band Bloc Party in 2003.

Successes with Bloc Party

In 2005 Bloc Party made their breakthrough with the debut album Silent Alarm and celebrated international success. The follow-up albums A Weekend in the City and Intimacy were also extremely successful. In particular, Okereke's very personal lyrics are considered a trademark of the band. Over the years, more and more electronic components were added to the pure rock elements in the music. In October 2009, the band members announced that they would take a longer break for the time being and take their time working on their fourth album. The reason given by the band was that they wanted to devote themselves to various solo activities first. In 2012 and 2016 further albums of the band were released, although the latter with a changed line-up.

Solo career

Already in 2009, the track It's Not the Things You Say appeared on the album Kaleidoscope by Dutch DJ Tiësto, which included a guest appearance by Okereke. On 14 June 2010, the single Tenderoni was released from the first solo album The Boxer, which was released a week later. Okereke justifies the choice of the album title by saying.

There are hardly any typical elements of rock music on the album. Okereke describes the work on the album as a "liberating experience". Rock music bores him by now, but in electronic music "everything [...] is suddenly exciting again". A revival of Bloc Party therefore seemed uncertain for a long time. On 16 August 2010, the second single Everything You Wanted was released, the third single On the Lam followed in November 2010 exclusively as a download.

In November 2011, Okereke released the EP The Hunter, preceded by the single What Did I Do, which he recorded together with singer Lucy Taylor. After several guest appearances in songs by other artists, some of which were also released as singles, and the release of a new Bloc Party album in 2012, Okereke announced his second solo album Trick for October 2014. This was released on 13 October 2014, with the songs Doubt, Coasting and Closer released as singles.

Okereke's third solo album Fatherland was released on October 6, 2017. He released this under his full name Kele Okereke, as a reason he gave to make a clear distinction from his previous solo albums. The music on this album did not contain any more electronic borrowings, but is rather to be assigned to the genre "folk-pop". The tracks Streets Bern Talkin' and Yemaya were presented in advance.

Personal

In March 2010, Okereke came out as gay in BUTT magazine. A few months later, he was voted Sexiest Out Gay Male Artist by music site lp33.tv. He currently lives in Shoreditch, London. With his partner and the help of a surrogate mother, Okereke had a daughter in December 2016.