Thomas Baptist Morello (born May 30, 1964) is a Grammy Award-winning American guitarist of the bands Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. He performs as a solo acoustic artist under the pseudonym The Nightwatchman. He is known for his unique guitar style and his outspoken politics.

Morello was ranked #26 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".^[1] Morello was also one of 20 contemporary guitarists Rolling Stone magazine featured in their "The Top 20 New Guitarists" article along with John Mayer, Derek Trucks, John Frusciante, Warren Haynes and other contemporary guitarists.

Morello was born in Harlem, New York. His mother, Mary Morello, who is part Irish and part Italian, is a founder of Parents for Rock and Rap, an anti-censorship group. She was also a teacher at Libertyville High School. His father, Ngethe Njoroge, was a Mau Mau guerrilla and revolutionary. Morello's great-uncle, Jomo Kenyatta, was the first elected president in Kenya.

Morello grew up in Libertyville, Illinois, at the time a virtually all-white suburb of Chicago. There he attended Libertyville High School. He sang in the school chorus and was active in speech and drama club. (One prominent role was Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream.)^[2]

He showed his political leanings early. Morello has described himself as having been "the only anarchist in a conservative high school"^[3], but has since identified as a nonsectarian socialist.^[4] In the 1980 mock elections at LHS, he campaigned for a fictitious anarchist "candidate" named Hubie Maxwell, who came in fourth place after Jimmy Carter at the overwhelmingly Republican school. Ronald Reagan won the mock election. He also wrote a piece headlined "South Africa: Racist Fascism That We Support" for the school's alternative paper, The Student Pulse.

At age 13, Morello joined Nebula, a Led Zeppelin cover band as lead singer. At this same age Morello purchased his first guitar at Rigoni Music in Libertyville. He wanted a solid-body Ovation guitar, but he didn't have the money to buy one. Instead, he purchased a Kay guitar. Wanting to learn how to play "Black Dog" by Led Zeppelin, he took two guitar lessons, but instead was taught the C-major scale. He decided that playing the guitar was a waste of his time, so he placed it in his closet for the next four years.^[