Rescheduled from August 3rd, all tickets will be honored. ‘As a second generation child of immigrant parents you see traditions that you’re not really a part of and you want to understand the chemistry behind them. With me, it’s always been about pushing down the walls of things that aren’t supposed to belong to you. Growing up a black child in this country there were always perceived notions of what you can and can’t achieve. You can only aspire to certain areas. With everything that I’ve done I’ve always wanted to stand against that and to show that everything is possible.’ If the reference points for pop stardom were strictly old school, the template for the music was shiny and brand new. After trying out several producers, including one major name American R&B hitmaker (‘He sent me beats made directly for the radio and they bored me’), Kele found his natural ally in XXXchange, the sonic evangelist that crafted the sound in his Brooklyn bedroom of both the last Spank Rock and Kills records. ‘Those records are diametrically apart and I loved the fact that he found the correct sound for both.’ After fashioning a dozen tracks on his own in Central London, Kele decamped for two individual three week periods to New York to graft the final audacious touches to the brand new him. The New York periods were pivotal for Kele. ‘I have to move there. I’ve been moaning about London too long now. I’ve found a place I love and I belong in. I just inhaled the city.’ The NY connection is perhaps why in spirit, if not in sound, there is an emotional correlation between The Boxer and even older school block party hip hop (ironic? Oh yes). The title of the record and its opening shot, the sexy call and response meter Walk Tall, sets up the stall for this cheeky, heartfelt, open record. ‘It was about putting something out there that had a sense of defiance. Training to within an inch of his life, using his body as a powerful presentational tool, became key to all this. Walk Tall was its soundtrack. For first single, the dirty club joint Tenderoni (‘it’s about pashing on somebody that is maybe a little too young for you’), peppered with dirty bass squawls and a ridiculously propulsive beat. The rest of the record is just as bold. In On The Lam he has broken into two step garage, fashioning a record with sped up vocals that owe as much to Sweet Like Chocolate as they do Alphabet Street. He sets the lover’s lament of The Other Side to a scintillating soundbed of samba house beats and driving piano. On Unholy Thoughts he tears religion apart with a coruscating line on guilt and a celestial choral breakdown into the closing cadences of All The Things I Could Never Say. The album is marked by both its ambition and its sense of the new. It is a fearless work. ‘In culture right now any period of music is ripe for the picking. It’s all up for grabs. The effect that Youtube has on the consciousness of a new generation is incredible. In 20 years time, for kids that can’t remember a time before Youtube and that speed of interfacing with every bit of cultural and musical heritage as a natural extension of themselves, well, can you imagine what art they are going to be making? The possibilities for future pop stardom are incredible.’ For Kele Okereke, one suspects they start right now.