During his 50-year career singer-songwriter Labi Siffre has played Soho jazz clubs, been covered by Madness and Kenny Rogers, sampled by Dr Dre and Kanye West and gained global status with his anti-Apartheid anthem ‘Something Inside So Strong’. We find out what keeps him strong.
This article is from New Humanist magazine, produced by the Rationalist Association, a charity dedicated to reason, science, secularism and humanism.
Describe your religious upbringing
With neither my permission nor my understanding I was baptised and confirmed a Catholic. My parents didn’t go to church but on Sundays made my brother Kole and I go. By the time I was eleven we went, with the collection money, to a coffee bar instead. I followed Kole into a Catholic monastery school, St Benedict’s in Ealing. The first words I heard from the teaching staff was a disgusted “Oh no, not another Siffre”. I was seven. I would be there for almost eleven years. We were taught by monks (History = the evil of The Dissolution of the Monasteries) and by secular teachers. Chris Patten was head boy by the time I got into the 6th form. I believe that after my time, Andy Serkis, Julian Clary and Peter Ackroyd were students there.
How would you describe yourself now in terms of faith.
I’ve always been an atheist. I’ve never had religious belief. Pre-teens, I assumed God was in the same make-believe category as Father Christmas; a game of pretend between children and grown-ups. Sometime in my early teens I realised, with incredulity, bemusement and regular bouts of “No, they can’t be serious” that they are serious. They really believe in an omnipotent man who lives in the sky, gave us rules by which to live, does magic tricks of life and death and, though all knowing, is excused responsibility for the consequences of his creative actions.
What were your earliest musical influences?
Bird, Miles, Monk, Mingus, Ellington, Basie, Ella, Billie, Betty Carter, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Errol Garner, Jimmy Reed, Wes Montgomery, Ahmed Jamal, the MJQ, Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor, Stan Tracey, Gil Evans, Gary Burton, Mel Tormé, Ray Bryant, Carmen McCrae, Jimmy Giuffre, Gerry Mulligan, many more. I was lucky; my brother Kole had excellent musical taste and a wonderful record collection.
Who are your top three all-time musicians/bands?
The Beatles, Glen Gould & Charlie Parker. My top 3 all-time composers, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Schönberg.
You used to play at Annie Ross's club in Soho in the 1960s, was that as cool as it sounds?
Annie’s Room, behind the Drury Lane Theatre, was my first “status” gig; Bob Stuckey (leader on Hammond B3 organ), Woody Martin (drums) and me on electric guitar trying to be Wes Montgomery. We were the second house band and fortunate to see, hear and meet, among others, Mose Allison, Betty Carter and Joe Williams.
The music business has been notoriously unsupportive of black British artists, was this your experience?
The insistence that one should be “ethnic” is endemic, irritating and insulting.
Why did you deny Dr Dre the rights to sample your song "I Got The..." for Eminem’s “My Name Is”?
Dissing the victims of bigotry – women as bitches, homosexuals as faggots – is lazy writing. Diss the bigots not their victims. I denied sample rights till that lazy writing was removed. I should have stipulated “all versions” but at that time knew little about rap’s “clean” & “explicit” modes, so they managed to get the lazy lyric on versions other than the single and first album.
People are always complaining about the demise of “real” music – are you optimistic or pessimistic about the fate of music?
The term “real music” is as meaningless, though politically, dishonestly, pejoratively useful to the dumb-asses you refer to, as is “real men” or “real Americans”. I’m optimistic that there will always be artists, in every artistic discipline, intent on producing insightful work, work of vulnerability (a major strength), politically engaged work, emotionally revealing work, pioneering work, works of courageous exploration, profound work. Those artists, though they are many, will always be a minority.
Do you think things have improved for gay performers since you started your career?
Heterosexuals in general are comforted by thinking they can tell if someone is gay, or not. In order to support that delusion they insist that gay characters be presented to them (the majority audience) in a way that they, in their arrogance, will accept as gay. Primarily this means camp (or being a depraved killer who loves opera or strokes his cat in a sinister way). In that regard little has changed. In terms of sexuality, the challenge has always been for heterosexuals to display more backbone.
What are you views on gay marriage?
I favour it. In time it will help heterosexuals realize that love is love is love is love and the responsibilities inherent in love, regardless of sexuality, should and must be acknowledged by the state. That inclusion will encourage the ideal that all are accepted as valid and equal members of society, and thus share equal responsibilities.
I have never felt welcome in the land of my birth. In December 2005 after 41 years of love, my partner, Peter Lloyd, and I entered a Civil Partnership. We gained, for example, the legal right for him to attend my funeral or for me to attend his. The alienation lessened. State recognition of equal validity in love through the equal right to marriage would further lessen that alienation.
Labi Sifffre lives in rural Wales with his partner of 48 years. Find his poetry at www.intothelight.info
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Comments
Brave thing to say but that it's exactly how i feel.
Like it or not, the media DOES portray gays (esepcially gay men) in a certain stereotypical way. If they portrayed all blacks as muggers, there would be an immense, and perfectly correct outcry. Gay men are by far the easiest target to pick on - and until this changes, people will continue to identify them as Graham Norton/Allen Carr types.
Weresmeticket, I am a liberal independent reader...
And, for the record, I don't read a newspaper - and never have.
Personally speaking I don't insist that anyone is "presented" to me in any way other than they want to be portrayed.
I get the Alan Carr/Graham Norton/Larry Grayson point, but its hardly my fault - as a general heterosexual - how those guys chose to portray themselves for their 15 minutes.
Omar in The Wire is just about the only one I can think of that isn't massively camp.