Musicians - Labi Siffre

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	Musicians - Labi Siffre

Labi Siffre (born June 25, 1945) is a British poet, pop singer, and songwriter.

Born in Bayswater, London to an English mother and a Nigerian father, Siffre was brought up in Bayswater. In the early 1970s he had solo hits with "It Must Be Love" (1971) (later covered by Madness) and "Crying, Laughing, Loving, Lying" (1972).

In 1978, he entered the BBC's A song for Europe competition with "Solid Love", but finished 5th and therefore did not travel to the Eurovision Song Contest as the UK's representative that year.

His 1987 hit "(Something Inside) So Strong", an anti-Apartheid anthem, has remained enduringly popular and has been used in a television advertisement and Alice Walker's film against female genital cutting: Warrior Marks.

His poetry focuses on the plight of the marginalised and dispossessed. His first poetry book was Nigger in 1993. His poetry addresses wide ranging themes of childhood, sociology, theology, racism and homophobia and the methods by which the mainstream dismisses the marginalised and dispossessed.

In rapper Eminem's hit single "My Name Is," hip-hop producer Dr. Dre wanted to include an interpolation of Siffre's "I Got The" for the beat. Siffre, being openly gay, objected to lyrics in the song he perceived as homophobic, and Eminem had to edit them out to get the sample cleared. The original bootlegged version can be downloaded on file-sharing networks.

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