Labi Siffre

Claudius Afolabi Siffre (born 25 June 1945), better known as Labi Siffre ( LAB-ee SIF-ree), is a British singer-songwriter and poet. Siffre released six albums between 1970 and 1975, and four between 1988 and 1998. His best known compositions include “It Must Be Love”, which reached number 14 on the UK Singles Chart in 1971 (and was later covered by the band Madness), “Crying Laughing Loving Lying”, and “(Something Inside) So Strong”—an anti-apartheid song inspired by a television documentary in which white soldiers in South Africa were filmed shooting at black civilians in the street—which hit number 4 on the UK chart. The latter song won Siffre the Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, and it has been used in Amnesty International campaigns.

Siffre has published essays, the stage and television play Deathwrite and three volumes of poetry: Nigger, Blood on the Page, and Monument. In 2022, his life and work was explored in the BBC series Imagine, under the title, Labi Siffre: This Is My Song.

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