Tom Morello

His father participated in the Mau Mau Uprising (1952–1960) and was Kenya's first ambassador to the United Nations.

Morello's paternal great-uncle, Jomo Kenyatta, was the first elected president of Kenya.

His aunt, Jemimah Gecaga, was the first woman to serve in the legislature of Kenya; and his uncle Njoroge Mungai was a Kenyan Cabinet Minister, Member of Parliament, and was considered one of the founding fathers of modern Kenya.

His parents met in August 1963 while attending a pro-democracy protest in Nairobi, Kenya.

After discovering her pregnancy, Mary Morello returned to the United States with Njoroge in November and married in New York City.

Denying paternity of his son, Njoroge returned to his native Kenya when Morello was 16 months old.

Morello was raised by his mother in Libertyville, Illinois, and attended Libertyville High School, where his mother taught American history.

Morello developed left-leaning political proclivities early, following in his mother's footsteps.

He described himself as having been "the only anarchist in a conservative high school", and has since identified as a nonsectarian socialist.

Thomas Baptist Morello (born May 30, 1964) is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, and political activist.

He is best known for his tenure with the rock bands Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave.

Thomas Baptist Morello was born on May 30, 1964, in Harlem, New York, to parents Ngethe Njoroge and Mary Morello.

Morello, an only child, is the son of an American mother of Italian and Irish descent and a Kenyan Kikuyu father.

His mother was a schoolteacher from Marseilles, Illinois, who earned a Master of Arts at Loyola University, Chicago and traveled to Germany, Spain, Japan, and Kenya as an English language teacher between 1977 and 1983.

In the 1980 mock elections at Libertyville, he campaigned for a fictitious anarchist "candidate" named Hubie Maxwell, who came in fourth place in the election.

He wrote a piece headlined "South Africa: Racist Fascism That We Support" for the school alternative newspaper, The Student Pulse.

Morello graduated from high school with honors in June 1982 and enrolled at Harvard University as a political science student that autumn.

Around 1982, Morello started studying the guitar seriously.

He had formed a band in the same year called the Electric Sheep, featuring future Tool guitarist Adam Jones on bass.

His band, "Bored of Education", won the Ivy League Battle of the Bands in 1986 with Carolyn Bertozzi, a laureate of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, on keyboards.

Morello graduated in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in social studies.

He moved to Los Angeles, where he supported himself, first by working as an exotic dancer: "When I graduated from Harvard and moved to Hollywood, I was unemployable. I was literally starving, so I had to work menial labor and, at one point, I even worked as an exotic dancer. 'Brick House' (by the Commodores) was my jam! I did bachelorette parties and I'd go down to my boxer shorts. Would I go further? All I can say is thank God it was in the time before YouTube! You could make decent money doing that job – people do what they have to do."

Adam Jones, a high school classmate, moved to Los Angeles as well; Morello introduced Jones and Maynard James Keenan to Danny Carey, who would come to form the band Tool.

From 1987 to 1988, Morello worked in the office of United States Senator Alan Cranston (D-CA); however, this proved to be a negative experience for Morello, who decided never to pursue a career in politics:"I never had any real desire to work in politics but if there was any ember burning in me, it was extinguished working in that job because of two things: one of them was the fact that 80 per cent of the time I spent with the Senator, he was on the phone asking rich people for money. It just made me understand that the whole business was dirty. He had to compromise his entire being every day. The other was the time a woman phoned up to the office and wanted to complain that there were Mexicans moving into her neighborhood. I said to her, 'Ma'am, you're a damn racist', and she was indignant. I thought I was representing our cause well, but I got yelled at for a week by everyone for saying that!

I thought to myself that if I'm in a job where I can't call a damn racist a damn racist, then it's not for me."

At age 13, Morello joined his first band, a cover band called Nebula, as the lead singer; Nebula covered material by bands including Led Zeppelin, Steve Miller Band, and Bachman–Turner Overdrive.

At this same age, Morello purchased his first guitar.

The two founded Rage Against the Machine, going on to become one of the more popular and influential rock acts of the 1990s.

He is best known for his unique and creative guitar playing style, which incorporates feedback noise, unconventional picking, and tapping, as well as heavy use of guitar effects.

Morello is known for his socialist political views and activism; creating The Nightwatchman offered an outlet for his views while playing apolitical music with Audioslave.

He was ranked number 18 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of greatest guitarists of all time.

As a member of Rage Against the Machine, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023.

Between 2016 and 2019, Morello was a member of the supergroup Prophets of Rage.

Morello was also a touring musician with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

Under the moniker The Nightwatchman, Morello released his solo work.

Together with Boots Riley, he formed Street Sweeper Social Club.

Morello co-founded Axis of Justice, which airs a monthly program on Pacifica Radio station KPFK (90.7 FM) in Los Angeles.

Born in Harlem, New York, and raised in Libertyville, Illinois, Morello became interested in music and politics while in high school.

He attended Harvard University and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies.

After his previous band Lock Up disbanded, Morello met Zack de la Rocha.