14 Facts About Labi Siffre

Labi 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 series Imagine, under the title, Labi Siffre: This Is My Song.

Claudius Afolabi Siffre was born in 1945 as the fourth of five children at Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital in Hammersmith, London, to a British mother of white British and Afro-Barbadian descent and a British Nigerian father.

Labi Siffre was brought up in Bayswater and Hampstead and educated at a Catholic independent day school, St Benedict's School, in Ealing, West London.

Labi Siffre studied music at the Eric Gilder School of Music in Wardour Street, Soho, London.

Labi Siffre played jazz guitar at Annie Ross's jazz club in Soho, London, in the 1960s as part of a Hammond organ, guitar, drums house band.

In 1978, Labi Siffre took part in the heats to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest.

Labi Siffre performed "Solid Love", co-written with Tom Shapiro, which placed fifth of the 12 songs up for consideration at the A Song for Europe contest.

Labi Siffre came out of self-imposed retirement from music in 1985, when he saw a television film from Apartheid South Africa showing a white soldier shooting at black children.

Labi Siffre wrote " So Strong", which he performed on Top of the Pops, and released four more albums between 1988 and 1998.

In February 2022, the BBC broadcast Labi Siffre: This Is My Song, as part of the Imagine series, in which Alan Yentob presented a film exploring Siffre's life and work.

Labi Siffre met his partner Peter Lloyd in July 1964 and they were together for 48 years.

In 2014, Labi Siffre appeared on the BBC Radio 4 series Great Lives, championing the life of British author Arthur Ransome.

Labi Siffre said that Ransome's Swallows and Amazons books had taught him responsibility for his own actions and a morality that has influenced and shaped him throughout his life.