Who

Adebimpe is the lead singer of the heavily hyped Brooklyn indie band TV on the Radio.

Backstory

Nigerian-born Adebimpe—the child of a psychiatrist and a pharmacist—lived in Pittsburgh before attending NYU film school. In the late 1990s he worked as an animator on MTV's Celebrity Death Match, as a ticket-taker at Film Forum, and sold paintings on the street in SoHo before founding TV on the Radio with roommate Dave Sitek. They've since added a few members to the group and released three albums, the self-released OK Calculator, 2004's Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes and 2006's Return to Cookie Mountain.

Of note

The band's work is difficult to categorize—it's a puzzling mix of rock, electronica, hip-hop, and other genres. Adebimpe's jokingly called TVOTR a cross between "Earth Wind & Fire and Wu-Tang," while journalists have giddily noted that Adebimpe sounds like Peter Gabriel, though the resemblance is vague at best. Music critics were agog about the make-up of TV on the Radio—it's definitely a rarity to find an African-American singer in an indie rock band—and journalists took to describing Adebimpe as a "blipster." But the band has earned legions of big fans like David Bowie, who even collaborated with them on their latest album.

On screen

Adebimpe hasn't completely ditched his film school roots—he directed and animated the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' video for Pin, and starred in the romantic comedy flick Jump Tomorrow, getting surprisingly good reviews considering acting is a hobby for him.

Habitat

Adebimpe still lives in the same Williamsburg loft where he and Sitek started the band. He says the apartment consists of the whole floor of a warehouse, peopled with a "rotating cast of characters."