Caleb Kunle

Drawing inspiration from the three places he calls home - Lagos (Nigeria), Laois (Ireland) & London (UK) - Caleb Kunle combines the power of storytelling akin to the folk traditions of Ireland and Nigeria with a big soulful sound that is bound to make you FEEL.
Caleb’s journey as a musician started as a teenager learning guitar & piano, playing with his 3 brothers - acting as self taught producers, band leaders, songwriters, vocalists, rappers and the rest - an escape from the struggle to find their place within the rural Irish community that they had moved to from Lagos, Nigeria, during childhood.
Realising the limitations of growing up in rural Ireland, Caleb made the journey away from home, busking while working with other musicians and producers for a year in New York where he was briefly homeless and then making the jump to London. Within his first year in London, he had won the NME Emerging artist of the year competition, working with the likes of Cores & Murkage Dave, and he released his debut EP "Eden", which has since had 500,000 streams on Spotify alone.
In that same year, he was performing and producing for the London based "Blackfish Collective", who won the Afropunk London battle of the bands, performing alongside acts like Thundercat, Lianne La Havas, WILLOW and Danny Brown. This, in turn, enlisted him as a resident artist at The Roundhouse.
Caleb then dedicated some time away from releasing new music and integrated himself in youth work and music workshop facilitation at the Barbican. Working with groundbreaking projects including the Satellite collective, and School Ground Sound. It was at this point that he returned to Nigeria, performing alongside the Cavemen, nurturing musical connections with people that he still collaborates with today and re-forging the connection with the music of his birthplace which plays a huge role in his current sound.
2022’s ‘All In Your Head’ and ‘Could Be Good’ (Pony Records), saw the world start to take notice, with Nialler9 naming ‘All In Your Head’ #7 best song of the year and the Irish Examiner nominating him as a ‘one to watch’.
‘All In Your Head’ has since been used across a number of sync placements including The Dublin International Film Festival and supported by the likes of Tom Ravencroft & Nabihah Iqbal (BBC R6), Jamz Supanova (BBC R1Xtra) and Kevin Cole (KEXP).
Over the following year, Caleb performed at Secret Garden Party, Eurosonic, Ireland Music week, Iceland Airwaves, Body and Soul & Mladi Ladi Jazz festivals, recorded a KEXP session for the legendary Kevin Cole, performed at over 50 Sofar Sounds across the UK and supported the likes of Sir Was, Michael Sebastien and more. He has collaborated with brands including Fred Perry, Nicholas Daley, Scott Fraser and Daniel Hanson and has cultivated a supportive online network & fanbase, amassing 2 million streams and over 200k video views.
After becoming a father in 2023 and taking time to hone his production and songwriting work, he returned in 2024 with the statement single ‘POWER’, picking up where he left off with a powerful
social message as the first in a series of singles due out over the coming months. They follow his triumph as runner up in the Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition (coming 3rd out of over 7,000 applicants), 4x shows at Glastonbury, 2 shows at The Great Escape 2024 and confirmed slots at this year’s Glastonbury festival.
POWER, was inspired by the strife & triumph of the Nigerian youths during the SARS Epidemic in 2020 through the End SARS social movement and has seen support from Steve Lamacq (BBC 6 Music), Kevin Cole (KEXP), Spotiffy playlisting and his first print feature in the Sunday Times.
In his own words “Being a diasporic Nigerian, I felt a deep sense of helplessness in being unable to lend my strength in person and this frustration led to inspiration, creating a song about the indomitable force that we are when we realise our unique strength as people to unite!
This song to me is a call to action to look within and find that we are all powerful! We have the power to make change together, as one powerful voice we are unstoppable!”