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Tunde Adebimpe is a singer, songwriter, actor, comic artist and video director. He became known with his band TV on the Radio, which recently gave her live comeback after a break of several years. Now Adebimpe has released his solo debut.
With Thee Black Boltz, your first solo album has been released, more than 20 years after the re -published debut of TV on the radio. We owe your activities to your busy in film and the visual arts that you have not been active before?
Tunde adebimpe: Yes, it hits. In 2019 we prescribed a break as a band. At that time I also had a burnout in terms of music. Since I started my career as an artist, I painted and painted comics and worked in the area of animation – the music ran on a line for a long time. But recently I was looking for a restart, I wanted to feel what music captivated me. For that I had to get out of amnesia. And began to hear Demos from me who were 15 years old. I started working on the solo album in 2019 and in spring 2023 I was ready with the recordings. That took his time because I did so many other things.
To what extent have “other things” influence your music?
It’s a very visual thing, I show you here, I created a kind of map for an album for the first time. That was an emotional map of myself, we can see some of it in the album booklet. There are many drawings and I tried to bring myself into this process with my head. You can also say: It’s like a figure that expresses my feelings and thoughts. But that was not a conscious decision to do that.
Border crossings are the order of the day. You go on a flying change from one art form to the next, have recently been seen in the series “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew”. How do these big steps go?
I try to grasp all the human emotions that the world can curl out out there. And I am very happy to have found different places to deal with it. As an actor in such a series or a film, I can work with people and deal with them about certain characters and roles. It fascinates me how a detective on the trail of a person. And to explore: what does this person have to do with me? And in art or the visual art, I may send an avatar of me into the race. There is a comic of me about a fight between two characters, one is more like a horse, the other like a bird. I made this book in 2009 when my life took place completely on stage. That felt strange to me. If you had predicted that a few years earlier, I would not have given you belief.
Has the attitude towards tour life changed since then?
It took a while until it was fine for me. I no longer have stage fright. I felt observed from the people, with the comic I was able to react to it. I was able to tell the evenings on stage as a fight, between pride and humiliation.
After the break, tv on the radio as a band are back on stage. As an artist, do you finally feel complete again because you are active again in the subject in which you have become so well known?
Yes, and I wasn’t aware of it at all, we were not even clear about how much we had missed each other in the time before. It was good to have taken a break because the things we loved were no longer a challenge and no inspiration for us. The break was important for us, now we notice again what we have together on stage. Where else works: you can step in front of the audience and scream for an hour. And people love it, and nobody tells you you should now hold the flap.
What role did your family background play in preparing you for the game in the different sectors?
My parents come from Nigeria, they went to the United States in the 1970s, looking for work. My father was a social worker and psychologist, but he was also artistically active, he drew very well and played piano. And his taste in music ranged from King Sunny Adé to Fela Kuti and from the Beatles to Nina Simone, there was always so much music in the house. He also took us children in museums and taught us the drawing. I didn’t have a talent for many things, but I already had to draw. In Nigeria it is said that if you want to exploit your potential given by God, you have to become a doctor or lawyer. But I wanted to be a cartoonist or comic artist, I loved people like Daniel Clowes and Chris Ware. My parents only said: “If artists, then please architect.” For me it sounded too much like math, I didn’t want that. They feared that I would stay without a job as a draftsman, but I trusted me that I would somehow find my way. So they supported me, although they would have preferred to see me as a permanent doctor who brings his four sisters and thus the whole family. Later I had already become something like a perfect son.
A hyperactive artist who, contrary to the first impressions, was allowed to show many talents. Are there phases with free time in your everyday life? With that you would cross another border.
Everything feels like free time for me. And I am very grateful that I can always end my free time with a result. I enjoy what I do, even if it presents me with difficult tasks. What I do is what I always wanted to do. It’s like being a child’s father. Overall, I love doing business, working with people and just looking at where we bring when we dream.
More about tunde adebimpe
In 2004 the debut album from TV on the Radio, a Brooklyner band, was released on the threshold between Art Rock and Electrified Postpunk. Five albums published with them as a singer, sound tinker and songwriter. In addition, you can know him as an actor from various blockbusters (“Spiderman”, “Rachel’s wedding” etc.), recently he was seen in the Disney series “Star Wars – Skeleton Crew”, and he also appears as a director.