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PHOTOS: Kele Okereke Buffs Up and Makes a Big Splash for "Attitude"

Kele Okereke continues to publicly explore his sexuality ... this time as the buffed coverboy of the latest issue of Attitude, the glossy UKL homostyle magazine. The brilliant, 1980s "B-Boy" inspired bright colored editorial is lensed by fashion photographer Ellis Parrinder.

The Bloc Party frontman talks about his new solo album The Boxer, sexuality ... and sex. "I can't tell you the amount of times I've been approached by heterosexual men that identify with a straight lifestyle. I am a very sexual person. Sex is something that I have enjoyed since I was a teenager. I've had a lot of sex." 

Okereke also discusses the gay men that he admires, such as James Baldwin, Freddie Mercury of Queen, Rupaul and the many late and ballroom personalities in Paris is Burning. "I watched it again a few years ago on YouTube. As soon as it finished started crying. You go to Wikipedia and all bar one are dead. And they died in such sad circumstances. But you watch the fil;m and they all have so much love."

Kele Okereke is not the magazine's first black cover but he becomes its first black openly gay cover. The cover and more images AFTER THE JUMP ...

Bloc Party's Kele Okereke Criticizes Nigerian Attitudes Toward Gays

Kele Okereke continues to publicly explore his sexuality ...

Bloc Party's newly-out lead singer, born in Britain to Nigerian parents, previously said he rarely discussed his sexuality in interviews because of his "super-Catholic" parents. In an interview with UK homostyle mag Attiutude, Okereke criticizes Nigerian attitudes toward gays and women.

"'I was born in the UK and my parents are Nigerian. Fundamentally, I do have problems with a lot of what I perceive to be Nigerian culture. How they treat women. How they treat gays. It's a very hierarchical system where you always have to defer to your elders even if you know them to not be right. That's something I personally disagree with. I think everything should be open to discussion. To reason is part of being human.' But he added: 'Nigeria is part of my heritage. I'd like to explore it. I love African music. I love African food. I love African people when I meet them. But these things are very complicated for me personally.'"

The oil-rich West African nation has been criticized by the United Nations for "serious" human rights violations toward its LGBT citizens. In 2007, the Nigeian parliament proposed extreme anti-gay legislation similar to the proposed Ugandan bill. Thankfully, that has stalled under international pressure.

After more or less coming out  in 2007 and publicly discussing his sexuality last month in Butt Magazine, Okereke has also made some changes in his musical tastes. Good to see that he's becoming more political, too.

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WATCH: Kele Okereke of Bloc Party's New Video "Tenderoni"
Bloc Party's Kele Okereke Shows His "Butt", Talks Coming Out
Bloc Party's Lead Singer Comes Out

WATCH: Kele Okereke of Bloc Party's New Video "Tenderoni"

Kele Okereke of Bloc Party channels D'Angelo's "How Does It Feel" and the Nine Inch Nails—with a touch of Kraftwerk—in the music video for his new single "Tenderoni." It's from his new solo album The Boxer scheduled to drop June 22.

Arjan Writes:"While taking time off from Bloc Party, Kele took the opportunity to book his own studio time to explore new sounds, 'I plugged in synths with no idea what they would do. It was completely back to the drawing board.  It was exciting and terrifying,'  he explains in a press release. 'The key for the sound of the record was to take things as harsh and as physical as I could make them. These are the sounds that make me happiest in the world.'"

After more or less coming out  in 2007 and publicly discussing his sexuality last month in Butt Magazine, Okereke has apparently also made some change in his musical tastes. The heavy synth track and sensual video is a marked departure from the alt pop Bloc Party.

Watch the video AFTER THE JUMP ...

Bloc Party's Kele Okereke Shows His "Butt" and Talks Coming Out

After years of avoiding questions on his sexuality, Kele Okereke, the lead singer of indie rock sensation Bloc Party, more or less came out in a January 2007 interview with The Guardian. The singer is notoriously shy and usually tries to avoid discussing his race or sexuality, as they "don't relate" to his music. But the British singer speaks more candidly in the Spring 2010 issue of BUTT, the critically-acclaimed Amsterdam-based 'zine. Okereke admits that he rarely discussed his sexuality in interviews because of his his "super-Catholic" Nigerian parents.

"My parents are super-Catholic and they come from a culture in Nigeria where there weren’t any visible gay people who were out and were happy. I left home when I was 20. My parents threw me out [for being gay]. Which I knew they would. We didn't speak for like a week.  ... My parents are getting older and I didn’t like the idea that they could possibly die without knowing something that is a big part of my life. It’s not easy. ... We've been talking about it."

Okereke hasn't had sex in months:

"I've been celibate for five months, which isn't that long, but it's the longest I've gone without sex. I just decided the next person I slept with, I wanted to be in love with, rather than feel nothing for them at all. I was becoming a bit desensitized to sex. It was starting to feel like another physical activity."

Okereke referred to himself "gay" but identifies as" queer" and adds that he wants "to remain open to experiences."

The singer adds the BUTT interview is an important step in his personal coming out process. "I’m always stopped by young, gay kids who say it’s really refreshing and encouraging to see someone like me being out in a relatively mainstream band.If I’d have had someone saying it’s okay to be you when I was a teenager, I’d probably be a very different person. That is why I’m doing this now, after years of not doing it. It’s good to show that gays come in all shapes and sizes."

Speaking of showing and size ... Okereke flashes his butt for BUTT. That photo AFTER THE JUMP ...

Bloc Party's Lead Singer Comes Out

After years of avoiding questions on the subject, Kele Okereke finally comes out. The lead singer of Bloc Party—the smash British indie band—candidly discusses the conflicts between his sexuality and his Nigerian-British upbringing to The Guardian:

In a musical form that is usually beerily, boorishly white, male and heterosexual, Okereke was a refreshingly different kind of indie icon. The possibility that he was not just unusual but unique—a black, gay role model for indie kids—meant that for many fans the focus seemed necessary rather than just prurient. Nonetheless, just as he hated being reduced to 'black guy in indie band', he refused to be drawn either way on his sexuality.

The band's upcoming CD, A Weekend in the City, features two songs that explicitly reference his sexuality—one explores a crush between two schoolboys ('We left our trousers by the canal') and the second dishes gay promiscuity. Kele Okereke says none of the songs in the band's previous album addressed homosexuality, so, there was no need to discuss his sexuality in interviews. Fair enough.

"With the first album I didn't think it was essential to the experience. I didn't want to have to talk about it in a tabloid way. It wasn't there in the songs, so why did people need to know? But yeah, there are songs on this record that do feel like they're about desire, longing. So yeah, I am gonna talk about that."

Several of the songs A Weekend in the City address the sad state of race relations in Britain. "As a black teenager growing up in Essex he 'always felt something nasty could happen in the pub'. On the streets of Bethnal Green, where he now lives, he feels that racist aggravation is, daily, a heartbeat away."

21st-Century Boy (The Guardian)

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