Kwame Kwei-Armah
| Kwame Kwei-Armah | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Ian Roberts 24 March 1967 Hillingdon, London, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Known for | Actor, playwright, singer, and broadcaster |
Kwame Kwei-Armah OBE (born 24 March 1967 in Hillingdon, London), born Ian Roberts, is a British actor, playwright, director, singer and broadcaster. In 2005 he became the second black Briton to have a play staged in the West End of London. (Ray Harrison Graham's Fringe First award-winning play GARY played at the Arts Theatre in 1990.) Kwei-Armah's award-winning piece Elmina's Kitchen transferred to the Garrick Theatre in 2005.
Brought up in Southall, he changed his name at the age of 19 after tracing his family history, through the slave trade back to his ancestral African roots in Ghana. His parents were born in Grenada. He has four children.
On 1 July 2011, he became Artistic Director of Center Stage in Baltimore, MD, succeeding Irene Lewis.
He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to drama.
He became the Chancellor of the University of the Arts on 7 March 2011.
Kwei-Armah's son, who goes by the stage name of KZ, contributed production and vocals to Wretch 32's 2015 mixtape, Young Fire, Old Flame, and his third studio album, Growing Over Life, released in September 2016.
Kwei-Armah was born in Hillingdon Hospital and named Ian Roberts. He changed his name when he was aged 19 after tracing his family history (in which he first became interested as a child after watching the TV series Roots), through the slave trade back to his ancestral African roots in Ghana, descendent of Coromantins. His parents were born in Grenada, then a British colony. His maternal grandmother moved to Trinidad, where she died, leaving her five children including Kwei-Armah's mother as orphans in Grenada. Kwei-Armah's mother moved to Britain in 1962. His father, Eric, moved to Britain in 1960, at a time when there was high unemployment in Grenada, and found work in London at the local Quaker Oats factory.
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