Kingsley’s Bio
Kingsley Ibeneche calls it “soul music.” As a child dancing and singing in a Nigerian-American church community in Camden, NJ, Ibeneche was introduced to ritual music’s ancestral power. He sang for years in exaltation of that community. As an adolescent, secular spaces gave Ibeneche a chance to experiment with expressive body movement in inviting ways, culminating in formal training in dance at University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Today Ibeneche is an accomplished dance performer, having shared the stage with Travis Scott, James Blake, Halsey, and others on mainstream platforms like the Gap, Video Music Awards and Saturday Night Live. But no matter how meteoric he ascends as a dancer, Ibeneche feels limited on stage as a backup dancer. You have to listen to his voice (as on Realms EP) to understand why one medium is not enough for his expression. Writers encountering Ibeneche’s music comment on his arresting intimacy as a performer, the cryptic honesty of his lyrics, and the brave coherence of his work across durational and fixed media. Realms EP betrays a
sense of just how much ambition Ibeneche intends to offer up at the bustling interstices of creative traditions from Ancient Greek tragedy and Elizabethan monologue to Nigerian high life, the D’Angelo diaspora, and so much more.
In fact, Ibeneche is now making more than music. The songs comprising Realms EP are central themes in his original theatrical experience of the same name, which will premiere at Philadelphia Museum of Art in July. The Realms “soul opera” incorporates creative movement, decorative sets, dramatic monologue, lighting design, projection, and music by Ibeneche and his live band “The Dirty Deity.”
