Tom Morello shares his experiences as a young Black guitarist: "I used to disavow Jimi Hendrix because every gig I played, someone would yell, 'Play Foxy Lady'"

Tom Morello
(Image credit: Ollie Millington/WireImage)

Tom Morello is one of the most successful and prolific electric guitar players in modern rock music, but he’s faced many challenges on his way to the top, particularly regarding racial bias and prejudice from some corners of the rock community, issues he details in-depth in a new interview.

“There’s a large subset of the audience that is shocked and upset when they hear me talk about self-identifying as Black,” he told NME. “They’re one step short of offended but I’m Kenyan, dude. I’m straight-up Africa Black.”

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Sam Roche

Sam was Staff Writer at GuitarWorld.com from 2019 to 2023, and also created content for Total Guitar, Guitarist and Guitar Player. He has well over 15 years of guitar playing under his belt, as well as a degree in Music Technology (Mixing and Mastering). He's a metalhead through and through, but has a thorough appreciation for all genres of music. In his spare time, Sam creates point-of-view guitar lesson videos on YouTube under the name Sightline Guitar.