Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke on recent racist and homophobic comments: “I don’t think me being visible means

Bloc Party‘s Kele Okereke has spoken out about the racist and homophobic comments he has been receiving online, saying that he doesn’t think that “being visible” means that he should be “subject to abuse”.

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The indie frontman spoke about the hateful comments he had seen during a new interview with Miquita Oliver as part of the Miss Me? podcast.

In the episode, Okereke discussed the online promotion for Bloc Party’s latest album ‘Anatomy Of A Brief Romance’, and said that his team informed him of an extensive amount of hate comments they had noticed on a promo clip for their song ‘Pigwig’, taking aim at his race and sexuality.

Okereke went on to share that while he has “known from the start that there will be people that do not want to see a brown face fronting an indie band”, he had never “felt that kind of kickback” until seeing the slew of comments on the ‘Pigwig’ clip.

He added that while he usually tries not to pay any mind to the online comments – believing firmly that “commentary fades, but the art remains” – he had noticed that being “intensely personal” in his lyrics for the latest album had opened him up to “a nastiness that I’ve never experienced before in all my years of doing this”.

Sharing the song in August, the singer added that it was “about the moment of realising that you have been hit by a very big love, almost as if it’s against your will,” and “probably one of the sweetest [track] on the album”.

Okereke tem sido aberto sobre suas experiências de racismo no passado, e em 2007 conversou com a NME sobre como seu primo foi morto em um ataque racista, explicando que isso levou a “muitas das ansiedades que eu tinha quando era jovem”.

In 2019, the singer also explored “public racism” in his solo single ‘Jungle Bunny’, released as part of his ‘2042’ album. “As a person of colour living in the western world, it does not matter how much wealth one accumulates, race will follow you wherever you go,” he said of the song.

Ele também conversou com a NME sobre como o cenário político inspirou a música e o álbum, dizendo que nunca havia experimentado “never experienced such widespread public racism” antes.

Bloc Party are currently out on a co-headline UK and European tour with Interpol, which kicked off in Copenhagen last night (Tuesday November 10).

Both groups broke through in the ’00s, and will be treating crowds to material from across their 20-year-plus careers – including tracks from Bloc Party’s seminal debut ‘Silent Alarm’ (2005) and Interpol’s landmark second record ‘Antics’ (2004).

They previously toured the UK together in 2004, and co-headlined a series of shows in Australia in 2023.

Last year, Bloc Party released a 20th anniversary reissue of ‘Silent Alarm’, and celebrated the record on tour – including at a huge 2024 show in London’s Crystal Palace Park.

They also received the Outstanding Song Collection award at the Ivors 2025.

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