Femi Kuti & Made Kuti – Legacy

The influence of the legendary Nigerian musician and activist Fela Kuti is displayed gloriously with the next two Kuti generations connecting on this joint release. Legacy + is in fact two albums, with one each presented by father and son. Femi Kuti, Fela’s son and former Egypt 80 band member, has been a driving force of Afrobeat and the power of music to change the world for some years, but it’s Femi’s own son, Made Kuti, that now steps up to present his own vision.

 As Femi was preparing his album - Stop The Hate - he invited Made, who plays bass, alto-saxophone and percussion on his dad’s album, to release his own debut record ‘For(e)ward’ alongside his own in a joint package. It’s a smart yet honestly touching move on his and the label’s part: and naturally pays dividends to the listener. 

Femi Kuti’s output on Stop The Hate is relentlessly fierce and funky, and for his eleventh album there’s no easing off the pedal. Kuti Senior delivers messages of freedom and positivity that are as bold and defiant as they’ve ever been: central themes of the album focus on corruption in Nigeria’s local government, equal rights and the end of police brutality for Black people. Pure and powerful and dispatched with experience and confidence, it’s Afrobeat+ direct from the source.

On Made’s ‘For(e)ward’ album, we’re presented with a wealth of influences added to the Kuti Afrobeat formula, with the talented musician also performing everything on the record. While the hypnotic basslines, rhythms and horns inherited from previous generations are vital ingredients, Made takes more than enough turns to make this record his own.

He studied at the famed Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance (the same place his grandfather Fela studied, back when it was known as Trinity College), while also soaking up the riches in London’s underground scene, and the city's diverse influences of club music, dub, hip hop, punk, jazz and other improvisational disciplines are audible in his music. The song’s powerful messages come from his own perspective, with the direct effects of years of political negligence and corruption, alongside sexual harassment of and inequality for women, brought to the fore. 

The (Positive) Force is strong in the Kuti family. Fela would no doubt be proud of what the next generations have delivered here - one continuing to play at the top of his game, the other emerging with promise, both still fighting for the people.

www.gigwise.com

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The contemporary End SARS protests across Lagos come more than four decades after Fela Kuti’s Zombie album launched its musical uprising against the methods of the Nigerian militia, who responded by raiding his Kalakuta compound, burning down his studio and throwing his 77-year old mother out of a third-story window. They come four decades after Fela married 27 women on the same day, either for misogyny’s sake or to delegitimize the government’s claims that he’d kidnapped his backing band and dancers, depending on which sources you read. A life’s worth of rebellion assembles this kind of political nuance to a man whose influence seeps through Afrobeat and into the fabric of a country’s resistance.

Take the centrepiece of Tony Allen and Hugh Masekela’s Rejoice – a feverish, limbless hard-bop holding Fela’s legacy on the shoulders of a street parade: “Lagos never gonna be the same, never, without Fela!” He was Afrobeat’s originator, who mystified the concept of rebellion, combined the greatest freedom-searchers in Blue Note jazz with the euphoria of highlife and escapist groove of American funk, and peddled joy as an act of opposition. In parallel to Northern Soul’s takeover of postindustrial Britain, Fela’s rebellion mobilised a world whose resistance hit under the dense fug of igbo smoke, with a shamanic trance and an open invitation to dance away the hardship.

In the years since his death, Fela’s legacy has been joyfully upheld: his son Seun still fronts Egypt 80, Knitting Factory have meticulously reissued his solo archives and the legendary communal moments at the New Africa Shrine, while the likes of Ginger Baker, Questlove, Brian Eno and Erykah Badu have curated selections of his work alongside essays and political commentaries. As the archeological dig of a lifetime’s work continues to show the historical weight of Fela Kuti, Legacy+ adds urgency to the tradition – a double release as one, comprising Fela’s son Femi Kuti’s new album Stop The Hate and Femi’s son Made Kuti’s new album For(e)ward. It’s an instant masterpiece in supplementing the heft of a surname. The music isn’t Fela’s, but the feeling is the same, and the protest is current. 

Stop The Hate is the literal father album of the collection. Lead single ‘Pà Pá Pà’ is a groove-filled checklist (“I want you to listen to me well”) and its scope is extraordinary. Femi calls for structural and social change in government; the need for clean water, safer roads and working electricity is demanded in the same breath as gender equality and continued resistance against corruption. Circular grooves lock on key lyrics: “Stop the hate” and “Stop the land grab” sound the visceral frontlines of protest, while the organ-laden, trumpet-heavy ‘Na Bigmanism Spoil Government’ stands with a vicious, Fela-worthy critique of power. 

Made’s contribution on For(e)ward swirls into the mental strains of resistance. The hypnotic locked groove – “free your mind and set your soul free” – picks up from the closing track of his father’s album, but the message after three minutes of mesmeric, sprawling future-Afrobeat holds a demand for freedom that you won’t find on Stop The Hate. Made plays every instrument on the album; ‘Your Enemy’ and ‘Higher You’ll Find’ become possessive with spiralling horns, instrumentals and brass cacophonies that conjure an internal Fantasia. As Tony Allen went on to reject lyrical content to find his loose-limbed percussive protest, For(e)ward conjures as much of a tempest with furious strums and astral horns as it does with words.

Subjects cross between albums; Femi’s ‘Young Boy Young Girl’ is the utopia that Made’s ‘Young Lady’ longs for, uncovering the sexual scandals at the University of Lagos. The wide-eyed circle jams of Made’s ‘We Are Strong’ look to solve the same injustices lamented in Femi’s ‘You Can’t Fight Corruption With Corruption’. The most striking moment in Legacy+ is Made’s monologue in ‘Different Streets’ to the somber effect of ‘Sorrow Tears and Blood’, ruminating on Fela’s message: “Grandpa was not predicting the future… we must now understand just how scary it is that we are facing the same problem from the ’70s, and think for ourselves how hard we must work collectively to be free.”

On their own terms, neither body of work is starkly more enthralling than its contemporaries. Yet what makes Legacy+ such a remarkable collection is how each album brings vibrance to the other and revitalises Fela’s archived resistance. There’s something in the family name that feels as vital now as it did forty years ago.

www.loudandquiet.com 

Femi Kuti - One People One World

 

REVIEWS

In the five years between Femi Kuti's Grammy-nominated No Place for My Dream and One People One World, he's been a busy man. He regularly performs at The Shrine, the performance space he built as a memorial to his late father Fela Kuti, he's a touring musician, and he also serves as a traveling ambassador for Amnesty International. (He also found time in 2017 to break the Guinness world record for the longest-held single note on a saxophone -- 51 minutes and 35 seconds.)

One People One World is Kuti's tenth album with his longstanding band Positive Force and its musical director and guitarist Opeyemi Awomolo. Unlike the righteous anger that inspired almost all of his previous recordings, One People One World is by contrast more affirmative; it's celebratory without sacrificing its activism. While Afrobeat is at the core of these 12 songs, Kuti picks up on the mosaic he began weaving on No Place for My Dream by incorporating the harmonies and rhythms of reggae, highlife, soul, R&B, hip-hop, and other global sounds into its mix, adding depth and complexity without sacrificing immediacy and accessibility. The title-track single commences with driving Afrobeat horns, but the rest of the band erupts into calypso and highlife celebration as Kuti and his backing singers deny racism, greed, and hatred the power to conquer the earth. With an infectious, swinging organ, "Africa Will Be Great Again" is a protest jam that details the corruption and greed that hold her back as a continent, but its pulsing wave of salsa, soca, and highlife makes it an irresistible anthem as Kuti posits the reclamation of the continent as the cradle of civilization and the heartbeat of the world. The D'Angelo-esque soul in "It's Best to Live on the Good Side" is carried by slinky, bubbling basslines, vamping R&B guitars, and a swirling organ. When the horns enter, thunder cracks as circular drumming and percussion thread in Afro-Cuban (Yoruban) rhythms. Second single "Na Their Way Be That" opens with cooking reggae before Femi's soulful saxophone solo and an Afrobeat chant cut in from the margin. "Evil People" is stomping, funky R&B, fueled by J.B.'s-style horns, layers of breakbeat drums, chunky wah-wah guitar, and congas. Immediately following is "Equal Opportunity," where Kuti and his backing chorus evoke the celebratory vibe of Curtis Mayfield's "Move on Up," and add jazzy Rhodes piano and Afrobeat horns and rhythms. Even straight-up Afro-funk jams like "Dem Militarize Democracy" open to embrace driving son rhythms, popping R&B basslines, and souled-out vocal and guitar choruses. The dubwise soul of closer "The Way Our Lives Go" is the set's most poetic and inspiring track. Kuti and Positive Force don't let up at all during One People One World. Impeccably sequenced, it runs from strength to strength, dazzling with expansive sonic textures, killer arrangements, and a musical genre palette that exists seemingly without boundaries. As a recording artist, Kuti has been reliably consistent, but this date is his masterpiece. 

allmusic.com 

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Femi Kuti is his own man.
 
By now, that shouldn't be a controversial statement - One People One World is Kuti's seventh studio album since his eponymous debut in 1995 - but when you're born into a musical lineage as distinguished as the Kuti family, it's easy for audiences to try and compare family members.
Certainly, there are similarities between Kuti's newest work and those of his father, Fela. Overt social themes take precedence as Kuti takes on corruption, militarization, and all things unsavory, but he sounds less like the voice of the next revolution and more in tune with his peaceful side on largely mellow, polished tracks that are full of compassion rather than fighting spirit. Warm and rhythmic tracks like"Africa Will Be Great Again", "Best to Live on the Good Side", and "One People One World" are full of positivity and put forward a hopeful vision of worldwide unity.
 
Each track has brassy and bright traces of classic Afrobeat, but Kuti's softer messages are met with soul and reggae influences that better suit the peace, love, and understanding that UNICEF spokesperson, children's rights activist, and HIV/AIDS education advocate Kuti means to convey.
That isn't to say that Kuti doesn't have his more trenchant moments of social critique. In "How Many", he demands answers to relentlessly driving beats: "How many songs must we sing / Before them hear the suffering of the people? / How many innocent lives must be lost / Before them know say war na evil?" His questions are pertinent ones, blasting climate change deniers and politicians who ignore poverty even when those afflicted rise up and try to fight it. On "Evil People", Kuti is utterly impassioned, singing straight from the heart about atrocities like ritual killings, kidnapping, and the destructive consequences of greed for both power and money.
 

Some songs are more specific; "Dem Don Come Again" directly attacks the hypocrisy of those who kill in the name of religion. Kuti follows it directly with "Dem Militarize Democracy", which specifically namechecks past and present presidents and other high-ranking members of the Nigerian government who have come from military backgrounds and brought shows of force to their roles as heads of state.
 
At the very end of the album, Kuti pours his whole heart into "The Way Our Lives Go", a pensive reflection on the nature of human life in relation to cycles of society and the world as a whole. His outlook, in spite of all the suffering he laments, is an optimistic one. "It's just a matter of time," he sings, "the people will rise and shine / One day the people will rise / And say to the suffering goodbye."
 
To come into One People One World with preconceptions of hot, pounding Afrobeat is to set oneself up for disappointment. To listen with an open mind is the key to appreciating Femi Kuti's unique music, not confined to a genre or locked in rigid ideas of stylistic tradition. One People One World is an album made to urge forward a nationwide - perhaps ultimately worldwide - healing process, and while it shines a light outward, it also reveals more about Kuti than perhaps any of his previous albums. His heart is on his sleeve and in his music, and the attention his voice commands is well-deserved.

popmatters.com 

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The frustrations that appear throughout Femi Kuti’s One People One World will be familiar to anyone with a passing interest in international news. The stories of despair that generally reach the UK from Kuti’s Nigeria are all present here but they appear alongside a call for resistance. He argues that Nigeria has been held back from its true potential by corrupt politicians and bad governance, as he and his father Fela Kuti have argued on many previous albums, and the stories of corruption and deprivation here are balanced with a message of hope. One day, the people of Africa will rise up against their rulers and run their countries for the people.

It’s a message that could be concerning in these sensitively populist times; the album’s opening song title ‘Africa Will Be Great Again’ is likely to suggest negative connotation for many listeners. But Kuti’s rhetoric is anti-authoritarian and optimistic. In fact, this album is so breezy and energetic that you might not notice the politics in it at all.

The music is a mixture of funk, Afrobeat, and soul; influences that Kuti has soaked up over 40 years of performing. It’s a style that will be familiar to anyone who’s followed his work in the past, or the work of other Afrobeat artists in general, but he does find little pockets of variation on this album. ‘Na Their Way Be That’ plays with a loose groove, led by a twisting, menacing saxophone riff, while ‘Equal Opportunity’ amps up the tempo to create a more South American rhythm.

However, the album mostly follows a very similar style; Kuti sings verses that read like political slogans, which he then punctuates with powerful blasts of horns. It’s an entertaining formula but also one that leaves the album feeling a little conservative. It feels unfair to compare Femi Kuti’s work to the music of his father but doing so sheds light on the problems with One People One World. Femi is a talented musician and band leader but he lacks the scathing wit and original turns-of-phrase of his father’s best songs, in comparison his lyrics can feel a little one note.

Take for example the lyrics of an album highlight ‘Africa Will Be Great Again’, where Kuti reels off a list of structural and economic problems and calls for investment in infrastructure and political reforms. He makes a fair argument but comes off sounding like a politician. Compared to the more abstract lyrics of his father’s ‘Zombie’ and ‘Water Get No Enemy’, it is uninspiringly straight-faced. It’s easy to support Femi Kuti’s message on One People One World but also wish that he’d delivered it in a more creative way.

The highlights on the album mostly come from the musical arrangements. ‘Best To Live on the Good Side’ has the album’s most invigorating horn arrangement, which rises and falls like Hollywood swing, and ‘Evil People’ brings out Kuti’s best vocal performance with a near-hysterical wail. Unfortunately, too much of One People One World meanders without enough memorable hooks or musical variety. It may have been better if Kuti had included fewer songs and let some tracks stretch past the 5/6 minute marks, allowing them to move into stranger territory.

Femi Kuti is still an entertaining performer and One People One World is almost tailor-made for live shows with its sharp performances and joyful tone. But listening to it on its own is a much less satisfying experience. These songs are too similar in tone and message, and unfortunately that makes for an undynamic album. The problem can be seen on the album’s closing track ‘The Way Our Lives Go (Rise and Shine)’ when Kuti sings that the glorious revolution of the people will come, it’s just a matter of time. But if Kuti is still singing about the same problems he saw decades ago, in the same style, and with the same intensity, the message falls flat. How are we to believe that this time it will come true?

drownedinsound.com 

Femi Kuti Announces New Album "One People One World"

Femi Kuti, the son of pioneering Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti, today announces his 10th album, One People One World, will be released Feb. 23 via Knitting Factory Records. And to kick things off, he reveals the title track from the forthcoming album, the bombastic and upbeat “One People One World,” which can be heard below.

The song, with its call to set aside differences and work towards a more peaceful world, is one that closely follows his own vocation as an activist; Kuti serves as a spokesperson for UNICEF advocating for children’s rights, and is a promoter of HIV/AIDS prevention and education. He and his band, Positive Force, recorded much of the album in Lagos.

"I hope this album brings joy, love, equal opportunity, justice, peace, understanding and togetherness to the world,” he told Billboard in an email.

billboard.com

Lagos lineage with Femi Kuti

Originally published @skiddle.com

Mark Dale chats to one of the world's greatest living Afrobeat stars, Femi Kuti about his father, family, re-opening The Shrine, and the state of Nigeria ahead of hitting Manchester in July 2015.

Femi Kuti is a Nigerian musician and songwriter who has lead his own band, Positive Force, for over 25 years. He has achieved considerable acclaim for live performances with this large scale ensemble, who specialise in the funk, jazz and traditional music-inspired Afrobeat.

Highly political in its lyrical content, Afrobeat was invented and pioneered by Femi Kuti's father, Fela Kuti, one of Africa's first global music superstars who, through ceaseless practice, innovation and international touring, honed the music to become one of the best possible soundtracks to dancing.

Since his death in 1997, Fela's legend has only grown, his music constantly reissued and his lifestory recently turned into a musical "Fela!"

As the eldest son of Fela Kuti, Femi continues this tradition. Having played within his father's band as a teen, he struck out on his own in the late eighties and ever since has helmed a politically charged, upbeat dance band that thrill festival and club audiences the world over. Along the way he has produced seven albums and worked with the likes of  D'Angelo, Macy Gray, Nile Rodgers, Common, Mos Def and Jaguar Wright.


Speaking to Mark Dale from his home, which is ten minutes outside of Lagos, Femi Kuti talks about Afrobeat, his father's legacy, politics and his efforts to re-open The Shrine, the Lagos-based nightclub which his father first opened as a focal point for his musical and political expression. He also delivers the surprise news that the Fela Kuti dynasty will continue exclusively on this stint of UK dates.


"My bassist resigned," says Femi Kuti. "There's no way I can get a visa for the new bass player in time. But luckily my son, Made, is at Trinity College of Music in the UK, so he will come and play with me."

What does it mean to be an ambassador for Amnesty International and a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador? What do you do?

Well, for Amnesty, if there's some kind of crisis or injustice somewhere, they use me to speak out about it and highlight the problem, like maybe talking about Boko Haram in Nigeria. The same for UNICEF, really. I might go to an affected area and see the problem for myself and I'm used to highlight the problem, as a method of communicating with the people about a specific problem.

You take your job as a musician very seriously and try to practice for six hours a day. How many instruments do you play?

I play the sax and the trumpet and I fool around on the piano. But the instrument I spend most time on now is the trumpet because I'm trying to take my trumpet playing to the same level as my sax playing. The first instrument I had was a trumpet, but my father didn't give me a teacher for that, so it just lay in the house. My father moved to the sax and he asked me if I wanted to also move to the sax, I obliged and said yes.

Did your father teach you how to play sax? Is that why you chose that instrument? Did you want to be like him?

Yes, I think so, but did he teach me? No, he just put it in my mouth. He told me how to hold it and taught me how to blow into it, but that's all. Growing up I had always loved the trumpet, that's why I picked it up again in about 2001.

Was it a difficult decision for you to leave your father's band and establish your own group Positive Force? Did you ever regret making that decision?

Yes, it was an incredibly difficult decision because I understood the consequences of what I was going to do. I had to be prepared psychologically for it. I knew my father would be upset with me, I knew everybody would be upset with me, the family, all his fans.

I'm convinced it was the right decision to make. I didn't like that my father and I fell out about it, but I knew it was the right thing to do. It took a long while for him to understand... it took a long time for us to become friends again. It was a high price, but definitely the right choice. 

If I hadn't taken that decision then I would not be in the position I'm in today. I would probably still have been leading his band at his death and my whole life would have been about his band. I didn't really want that. I was already being groomed to be like him, I was dressing like him, I sang and played like him. Everything was about me taking over. And something in me just wanted more than that. I wanted freedom to really express myself.  


Afrobeat is an angry music, yet your group is called Positive Force (watch them above). Can anger be a positive emotion?

Yes. The reason for the group being called Positive Force was I needed a name to make people understand why I took the decision to leave my father. It was for good reasons that I chose to leave, not for the reasons that many people thought. I needed a positive name to express that. 

Yes, afrobeat is anger, but it's not a violent anger. It's an anger that's trying to make people see that there needs to be urgent change if there's not going to be a catastrophe, if we are to avoid anarchy and chaos. If people do not solve these problems we are going to be in a much bigger mess than we are already in. 

It is an anger directed towards corruption and injustice, a call that we must address these matters before it becomes a crisis that is unresolvable.


On your 2001 album Fight To Win you seemed to be trying to move away from a traditional Afrobeat sound, yet on later albums you have returned to a more recognisable Afrobeat sound. Are you conflicted about being described as an Afrobeat artist?

No, I want to be described as an Afrobeat artist. The way I write my music is always with an open mind. I don't restrict myself to a particular pattern. I think that's why people say that I do a lot of different things, like experimenting with machines in the studio. That's me trying to enhance my creativity. I will go to the studio and try things in Afrobeat that people would not think were possible. That's the way I am.

The opportunity came to work with people like Mos Def, Common (above), Jaguar Wright and I seized it. I had reached a new peak of popularity at that time so I thought it was an important time to try and communicate with African Americans. 

At that time there was a lot of distorted news coming from Africa and especially Nigeria and I thought it would be better to try and show the picture from my perspective and the perspective of the common people, who rarely have the opportunity to tell their story. I wanted to show that if the people here act in a manner that the world doesn't understand, why it is that they act like that.
We have no education, no healthcare service, corruption is widespread. There's so much oil and yet some people don't have electricity, so of course some of them will become nuisances when they grow up. I had to tell the African community this story. 

Maybe they had an idea of this, from listening to my father, but I thought it also needed to come from me. So, my collaborations were instigated on this basis. It wasn't like I was moving away from Afrobeat, it was just that I thought it was important to build that bridge. 


Why did you want to re-open The Shrine (watch Femi play The Shrine above)?

I thought that was the best way to honour my father at his death. The Shrine that he had was taken from him because when he bought the land he was tricked. It was a lease. He thought, when he signed the contract, that he was buying the land. He was in court for over a decade, until his death, fighting the landowners.

The law in Nigeria states that in a dispute over land, if the challenger dies, then the case cannot go further. So, we could not take up the fight with the landowners, but it was very important to us to try and bring back The Shrine in order to keep Fela's legacy. 

So, what happened was that, when we reached an agreement over the licensing deal to release my father's back catalogue, I managed to convince my elder sister, my younger sister...... my side of the family, to use our own money to buy land and build The Shrine in his honour. 

It is a place where we honour not only my father, but also people like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Patrice Lumumba, Thomas Sankara, great Africans who have fought for the emancipation of Africa and Africans. This was his dream.

How often is The Shrine open and what kind of music is played there? Do you have African stars from countries outside Nigeria coming to play there? How is it different from other clubs in Lagos?

It was opened in 2000. I play there two times a week now. My younger brother Seun plays there once a month, on the last Saturday. We have a festival in October. Everyone's invited, other Afrobeat groups play there, the Nigerian hip hop scene comes there. It's not strictly for Afrobeat. 

Hugh Masekela has played there, King Sunny Ade, many. Many bands from Kenya, Ghana, Mali. As for the other clubs, I am not the social kind, I never go out, so you're asking the wrong person that question. There's a place called The Freedom Park, they have live music there also.

Two of the strongest elements in Afrobeat are funk music and jazz music. Many people would consider these musical style to be American music. Would you say that's true?

[laughs] Why would you say that these were American musics when they were developed by Africans?

Well, if you asked the people who developed that music in America, maybe they would consider themselves to be American.

That is the effect of colonisation. If you asked an enlightened American, they would tell you that it's African, the inspiration comes from Africa and that the people who developed it are African. They would tell you that their ancestors were stolen from here, taken to America to be slaves. 

An African American who doesn't know his past, or indeed his present, would probably say that it's American, yes, I accept that. But what you have to understand is that this music did come from the African community in America and that community is... African. 

This music came out of the blues, developed through jazz, be-bop, funk, pop, rock and now hip hop. If you speak to connoisseurs or the composers themselves, people like Miles Davis, they could instantly see the connection. They knew exactly where my father was coming from. They understood the roots.

The last time I was in Africa a lot of the young people were enjoying hip hop, R&B and reggae music. How popular is traditional music in Africa?

I don't know in other parts, I can't say for sure, but it depends on the traditional music. There is one called apala, that's from the west, and another called fuji and they are very popular. They don't get airplay, but they do have a very large following. The stars of those musics are very popular at grassroots level. 

You played a concert with your brother Seun earlier this year and I read that this was the first time you'd done that. How was that experience?

It wasn't the first time. We'd played together before, in Denmark and we regularly play together at The Shrine. But it was the first time we played together in Nigeria outside of The Shrine, so some people tried to make a big thing of it. It was a big deal for some people. It was a big deal for my brother, I think, because of his age. 

Some people like to trouble him that there are still frictions within the family. My brother and I have no problems. He really went all out to make sure this gig happened. Maybe, because of my age, I was very cool about it. 

If people want to make up stories about there being a friction, then that's their business. At my age I really don't let things like that bother me. So, for a lot of people it was a big deal, but for me? We talk on the phone all the time and we already played together.

Corruption exists throughout society, not only at the top of society, with politicians and big business. Do you think these are new problems?

I think these are problems that have always existed, but it's particularly bad right now because it has become like a culture. Especially in Nigeria. Everyone here believes that if you are not corrupt you cannot be successful. I think it will change but it has to change from leadership. 

When governments start acting in the kind of manner in which they're supposed to act, be a government of the people, for the people, as it should be, slowly society will change. When people understand that to be corrupt is evil, society will change. 

Here it's all too evident that corruption controls everything because everyone is corrupt, your driver is corrupt, your household is corrupt. You can't trust anybody and that is too sad. But this hasn't just happened yesterday, it has been going on for the last 30 years and has been going downhill since.
I really don't believe that all is lost. I am still very optimistic that a generation will come and realise that things have to change and demand that change. You can seee signs that is already happening. Young people here are very sad and very vocal about the situation and you can hear that, like in some Nigerian hip hop. 

I don't believe this generation can bring about the change that's needed, but they can influence the next generation and maybe they will be the ones to say enough is enough and can bring about that change. Maybe this can happen 20 - 50 years from now. 

Do you think young people in Nigeria are proud of Nigeria?

They are upset, but yes, they are proud of Nigeria. 

Do you think that pride people have, in an individual nation, maybe stops them seeing a bigger picture, one of Pan-Africanism?

Well this is what Patrice Lumumba fought for and died for, this is what my father's life was all about. Until we see the bigger picture we will just keep going round in circles. People who are nationalist like this, they don't want people to see the big picture, because if they do, that's the first step to bringing down all the corruption. 

We need to think of ourselves as brothers and sisters, as one people. We need to understand that Nigeria, along with every Southern African country, these are just colonial structures. There is a voice that says these things, but it is not in the majority right now. Their voices are always drowned out by the nationalist voices, who pretend to be very patriotic. But it's a very convenient patriotism.
Why can't the African people stand firm, come together, protect themselves, protect their continent, protect their traditions and culture? 

Today we can see many young Africans who don't like the indigenous names, they prefer to be called David Simpson, because they believe they will get a better job than if they are called Kokumo. But this has always been the fight of my father, my fight and the fight of Afrobeat. It is a difficult fight because the nationalist voice is a corrupt one and it steals in order to be able to silence the other voice. Though it's not as loud, that other voice is still there.

There is a familiarity not only in the music of you and your father, but also in the words that you speak. How do you think your father would feel knowing that you still sing about many of the same problems he complained about?

It's very sad. My father was saying these things when I was 13. Now I'm 53. I think my father was already a very depressed person before he died. He was always in very deep thought. If he saw the way Nigeria was now being run, I think he would die from high blood pressure.

I read that you're a judge on Nigerian Idol.

I resigned. The programme is on the world stage, I tried to advocate that it should be more African. It's too American. We should be showing Africa to the rest of the world, not try to imitate others. We should be encouraging the younger ones to play musical instruments, learn a skill, have a career for life, but what happens on Nigerian Idol is that all these young people come out, they make a lot of noise, then they become nothing. 

Then they start roaming the streets. They don't even bring out a song. They become stars only with their pictures in the paper, but in reality they are nothing. And yet they go there with so many dreams. I did not want to be part of something that did not mean more than that.

Your father's story was in the past few years successfully translated onto the stage in the production of Fela! Do you think the time is right for a movie to be made of his story?

Yes, I was very impressed with Fela! I cried when I watched it. I think a film of his story would be magnificent, if it's done properly. Mindblowing.

How important is it to you that your own children follow you into music?

I don't know if it's important like that. What's important is that they are happy and they can be what they want to be. That's what's important.

If they don't want to play music, that's not something that will make me turn over in my grave. They all seem to be wanting to play music and that doesn't freak me out, if it's something they are happy doing. But if they choose to do something else, as long as they are smiling, that will make me a happy father. 

What is the difference between arrogance and self belief?

[laughs] That's a very deep question. It could go many ways. Arrogance is like corruption. Arrogance doesn't really mean that you know what you are doing or can do what you say you can do.
Self belief should come with being humble and with the understanding that mistakes can happen. I think to be humble, to be like that, it comes with being spiritual. 

Arrogance is very negative, it means you think you are insurmountable and you think you know a lot, but you don't even know God. If you are arrogant it means you are disrespectful to other people, you don't care. 

If you have self belief, you are more likely to respect other people, to help them, because probably you have made mistakes, but you are the kind of person who can learn from these mistakes and then want to correct other people from making these same mistakes, that's why you believe you are right in the path you have decided to go. If you understand what I'm trying to say. One is negative, one is positive.

Originally published @skiddle.com

Seun & Femi Kuti & Ebo Taylor concerts!

Femi Kuti ... current interview (2013)

Published @ German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Translated by googletranslator.


Femi Kuti in the interview: "There never was so much suffering in the world"Hardly a respected musician in Africa died in 1997, Nigerian Fela Kuti, inventor of Afrobeat. With monster grooves and many political statements, his son Femi Kuti leads for years continued his charismatic father's legacy. In this interview he talks about the global crisis of poverty, harassment of Nigerian government and the idiosyncratic style of upbringing his father.
 
If you look back at the history of pop, one encounters many visionaries, eccentrics and charismatics. But even in this brilliant panoply of types of Nigerians Fela Kuti is a rather unique appearance. That is of course his music, the fact that he personally invented a new style - Afrobeat - and this contributed to several dozen LPs out into the world. To the same extent it is but to his political activism, his opposition to the Nigerian military junta of the seventies and he criticized as cynical and corrupt state apparatus. In the West, political activism by celebrities is often pose, and if not, then it is usually harmless at least. Kuti, however, was brutally harassed for years by the Nigerian state. 1,000 troops in 1977 destroyed his commune in Lagos, the Kalakuta Republic, beat him and threw his mother out of a window, whereupon they died. In 1984, he was sentenced to 20 months in prison flimsy grounds, but even that did not stop him from continuing to express his radical political ideas. When he died of AIDS in 1997, it was quiet around him, in recent years, however, his music has experienced a great revival, and penetrated into the western indie underground.

When I saw Fela's son Femi Kuti for the first time live, I was thunderstruck: it was as though Fela Kuti himself on the stage, and the band played the son was just as groovy as you would expect from the father. If you listen closely, you will of course also differences between Fela and Femi. However, I no second case, the pop, in which a son would be equally convincingly in the footsteps of his father. Is just his new album No Place For My Dream (Naive / Indigo) published whose Afrobeat grooves and monsters political statements perpetuate the legacy of Fela Kuti worthy. I recently had the opportunity to call Femi Kuti at home in Lagos.Femi Kuti, Fela Kuti, her father has been dead for 16 years, yet his music is as alive as ever. Meanwhile Playing the hipsters in Berlin and Brooklyn Afrobeat.

As a little boy I had the feeling that my father's music is something special. Therefore it does not surprise me when I hear today of the young Afro-beat bands in Australia, Japan, Europe or America. Even my father, wherever he is, is certainly very glad.

Likely to be important for this revival that his music is now much easier to get than in his lifetime.When Fela died in 1997, there were countless prey pressings of his music. We have stopped and its extensive catalog licensed to record companies, where his music really is at heart. For the family, it is very important that her albums are available all over the world.

How close was their relationship with Fela when you grew up? As far as I know, you have not lived together as a child with him.

That's true, then I am certainly occurred as a teenager in his belt and pulled into the Kalakuta Republic (Note: Fela Kuti's commune in Lagos). During this time we had a very close relationship. I was his right hand and had done much for him.

And before that?

Fela was not a conventional father. He traveled a lot, played a gig somewhere, was on trial, was hiding from the police. Nevertheless, he was present in the life of me and my sisters, we always knew that he loved us. But we have also understood very early on that we have no father to sit down in the evening and doing homework with us.

Did you sometimes feel that you have to fight for his attention?

Do not fight directly. Which actually often hundreds of people around him - sheer madness. But as kids we thought it was great. We had a lot of freedom. Fela did not even want us to go to school - he found that there we would get an education in the old colonial style and did not like it. As we have said, we remain at home today, he was very pleased. As we grew older, we understood better what has occupied it and why things are done as they happened.

Ziggy Marley once told me that his childhood was often quite hard.

Well, it is well known that Fela was pursued for many years by the Nigerian military and the secret police. They often beat him up, harassed and arrested. My mother tried to protect us from these things and keep us close to himself. But the older I got, the more I noticed it.

Have you ever been beaten up by the police?

Yes, I did. But much less severe than my father. Have taken into consideration the fact that I was still a child.Despite all this harassment Fela never caved.

That is the reason why he is still viewed that way. He has never made compromises and can not be dissuaded with so much pressure from his convictions. The more you hit him, the more he was! Therefore his music is relevant to today. The people still impresses its stability.

1978 Fela Kuti married 27 women in one day. You were 16 - what you thought of this action?

Who had no great meaning for me and my siblings. Whatever he did, we supported him. We often put on his side, sometimes against our mother, and often causes them to eventually agreed with my father. Well, she probably realized that we have not understood exactly what it was. Maybe she's done it only willing to love the peace.

What was your role in the band of her father?

I started as a saxophonist and then worked my way up to deputy bandleader. As Fela went to prison in 1984, I have taken over the band for two years. 1986 I then founded my own band.

With your father, you have often played in his nightclub in Lagos, the Shrine. For many fans, the Afrobeat is an almost mythical place. How would you describe the atmosphere at the Shrine?

It was a very free place. Very colorful, with colored lights and lots of girls. If you entered the Shrine, you felt like being on another planet. For many people it was a place where they could escape the difficult life in Nigeria and concerns over the government. The music was real, and there was always plenty of dancing.Once I met a German who has lived in Lagos in the seventies and was often at the Shrine itself.

That whites came to the Shrine, was not so unusual. Fela had many foreign friends, many embassy staff were regularly. Even Paul McCartney was in 1973 at the Shrine.

Now you operate the Shrine.

Yes, I try it at least. However, it is not the same location. My sister and I have built a new Shrine in 2000, with the proceeds of Fela's catalog.

What is the biggest difference to the old Shrine?

Likely that the public consumption of marijuana is now no longer tolerated. Thus, there was simply too much trouble. We have tried to make the New Afrika Shrine is not just a concert stage, but a spiritual place, where we also honor great men like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Marcus Garvey, Patrice Lumumba, Thomas Sankara. We have many ideas to advance the Shrine - Unfortunately we lack the means. We have found great difficulty, sponsors, because many companies are afraid to squander it with the Nigerian government if they support us.

If Fela Kuti by the Nigerian government because still regarded as enemies?

That is now changing. In Lagos, a museum was opened for my father, a second to be built there, where he was born. Important for this change was the success of the Broadway musical Fela! That was BNXgsm of people like Will Smith, Jay-Z and Beyonce. Something impressed by the Nigerian government - because they have suddenly afraid to stand as an enemy of Fela. By 2010, however, we had regular problems with the government, always the Shrine was closed.

What is her relationship with her brother Seun?

Good.

He appears occasionally in the Shrine, right?

Yes, once a month.

How would you define Afrobeat music?

Fela blues and jazz to African ears adjusted and combined with African rhythms and melodies.Its success is probably also been very important that he had the brilliant drummer Tony Allen in his band.One can not say that. The rhythms of all came from my father. None came from Tony Allen. I wonder why all ignore this fact in Europe and raise Tony Allen in the sky. I have nothing against him, he's a great drummer, a friend, even a father figure. But I remember it clearly, as my father told him at rehearsals, what to play. Not just once or twice - always. Fela has studied music for four years in London, he could read music, compose and play almost all instruments. On all his records is composed, Arranged and produced by Fela Kuti - and so it was.

When you have established your own band in the eighties - it was difficult to contact shadow of Fela?I saw no shadow, but many people have made me stress. Everyone has compared me to him. You'll never be as good as your father, the people said. Negative, negative, negative. I'm glad I got through this storm. His influence on me and my music, I never denied, but I had to find my own way. I wanted to make clear to everyone that I'm also gifted. But I am not in a competition with him or even try to outflank him.

Fela has given you any advice?

When I showed him my first songs, he said: "The songs are beautiful, the melodies I like, but you can not dance to it. If you want to have success in Africa, your music has to be danceable. "That I have taken to heart.

Fela describes Nigeria as a country under the yoke of corrupt politicians who are stuck with large companies and the old colonial powers under a blanket. Is that still valid?

Nothing has changed. The Nigerian government has failed. If we had honest politicians who love their country and get serious with the fight against corruption, Nigeria would today among the most advanced countries in Africa. But Nigeria is unfortunately part of the problem and not part of the solution. We may at such assessment but also African history not forgotten - the slave trade, colonial rule, the bad governments that followed. You can not expect to have such problems overnight behind. I hope that someday Africa will to freedom, the way of Nelson Mandela and my father followed. But I'm afraid I will not live to see that.This pessimistic view of the world I find on your new album No Place For My Dream again, though, the music is groovy again.

I want my listeners realize what is happening today in the world. As long as I live, there has never been so much suffering in the world. I try going to talk not only about African issues. Look to Haiti: This was once big in the media - who is talking about it now? But it's the people there better? Look further to Portugal, Cyprus, Greece, America - everywhere there are unemployed people who can not feed their families. Look to terrorism in Mali, Nigeria, London. I think the world is heading towards a state of anarchy. There has never been as scared as now - but thanks to the music, we can still feel a bit of fun and joy anyway.

Femi Kuti about the musical FELA!

I cried when I saw Fela! On Broadway – Femi Kuti

Just like his father Fela, Femi’s commitment to political and social causes is not in doubt. A towering talent in his own right, the son of the Afrobeat legend has been nominated for a Grammy Award three times in the world music category, in 2003, 2010 and 2012, but has never won. In this exclusive Interview with Sam Umukoro and Kolade Arogundade, Femi talks about his life, career, Fela and of course, you guessed right, political and social issues. 

SUI: One important book in African studies is Walter Rodney’s book, ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’.  Don’t you think it’s high time Africans began to look at how Africans underdeveloped Africa, instead of blaming Europe?

Femi Kuti: No, that is not the point. It is an escapist route. I hate that statement when many Africans say, get over it. Get over what, 500 years of slavery? Can you imagine if slavery did not happen?
Before slavery, Africa had a culture. We had medicine and our cure for malaria. Slavery brought diseases that we were not used to; slavery brought industry and people were criticizing industry way back as 2,000 years ago, that it was going to pollute the air, sea. Industry is not the way. We must deal with nature. It’s taken them 200 years to understand that they were wrong, 500 years to understand that slavery was wrong.

Now we have to understand that slavery would not have ended if it was left to the Africans alone, Now, Europe understood that what they were doing then was unjust, but imagine the propaganda from kings and queens of Europe to convince their people that we were cannibals, idol worshipers, horrible people, bastards, godless monkeys… you cannot imagine the pandemonium that was even going in their minds, because at that time in history, there were no footages to show what had happened, the footages we have are those of the Ku Klux Klan hanging people… But we need to appreciate that history, where is the blame for the African?

 SUI: In essence, Africans need to understand their history?

Femi Kuti: Yes. You want to blame (President Goodluck) Jonathan for not knowing this history, was this history taught in his school? I won’t be surprised if it wasn’t.

I’m sure Jonathan does not appreciate Lumumba, know much about Kwame Nkrumah, or the significance of what Nkrumah did when he formed the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Let’s look at how he got into power. Did he intend to become president? He was the deputy governor of Bayelsa state until he was chosen as vice president to (late President Umaru) Yar’ Adua.

This is somebody that I’m sure has no understanding of the magnitude of this African history because if he did, he would have been going in that direction. Africans should be asking questions, like why does America and Russia have the right to veto our votes? These countries talk about democracy and yet are not democratic themselves.

Our leaders should start talking as leaders. They talk like puppets. It might take us another 100 years to come out of this phase of corruption and mismanagement. But the good thing is that we are more aware, and more Africans are talking about these things.

Also, Nigerians are freer today, unlike in the 70′s, because a man, my father, sacrificed himself for many years, before the Gani Fawehinmis, Femi Falanas, Dr. Beko Ransome Kutis. We have to appreciate this fact.

Fela stood alone and when he spoke then, many people, even his family, opposed him. When he said, change your name from Ransome to Anikulapo, because he felt it was a colonial and slave name, they could not understand where Fela was coming from. His family rejected it; his brothers carried the name till their death.

For Fela, it was about being yourself, loving one’s culture. But his family didn’t understand this. How long is it going to take us to understand that, for us, (bearing) ‘Chinyere’ is better than ‘Mary’, why should I want to be John instead of Lakunle? Why should I wear a coat and tie in this hot sun? Why can’t we love our own attire?

The deeper you look into this problem, you find people who cannot reason. When you even start this topic with them, they are not ready because of education and their family tradition or what their father told them, that Jesus is coming soon… we are too focused on religion… Do you know how much money churches and mosques make from the distortion of facts and history, just to enslave the human mind? Do you know how much money we put into Saudi Arabia or the Vatican City in the name of religion?

The good thing is that there are many of us who are becoming open minded. Why did Fela revolt? Fela’s father and grandfather were pastors, but Fela went to America, he read all these books and then he said ‘Aha! There’s too much discrepancy in the American life and this is Nigeria…’ He read books and went out of his way to do his own music. Just imagine if Fela had followed the path of his father. He would have been singing ‘O, Oluwa wa jesu ti wa ni’.

SUI: Talking about slavery, one of the arguments put about Africa today by some people is that the continent is not so much better off than it was during the colonial era, especially with the numerous wars, conflicts and bad leadership…


Femi Kuti: Oh, that is an insult. Those people who said so should be slapped. Imagine the crimes that were committed here. We need to consider that.

I have English blood, but I’m not going to say because of my English blood, I’m going to run away from the fact of what happened in Africa. I have a British passport; I don’t need to be here. But we cannot run away from the truth. It will always vindicate one. It’s not my path to escape and find the easy way in life.

First of all, democracy is not a European way of government; it was practiced long ago before Jesus Christ, even in Africa where Africans elected their kings and chiefs to represent the communities. The chiefs were as powerful as the kings because when one committee says ‘no’, there could be war. So it was about unanimity. They all had to come to an agreement about issues.

And that meeting could go on for days, because when they come out in disagreement, war can erupt. So we were already practicing this system of democracy. Let us look at the system of democracy in practice in modern times, where is it really working, in Turkey, Cyprus, England, America? US President Obama wants to close Guantanamo Bay, but the legislators refused. He’s having sleepless nights. What favour have they (the West) done us?

Look at South Africa and the end of apartheid, for me, I think they just used Mandela as a figurehead because Europe and America wanted to do business with South Africa, and they used that as an excuse. They wanted trade because of the diamonds and all the resources they could get from South Africa, but they needed to do it openly. So they ended apartheid, with the belief that they will still have the power eventually. How really democratic are they in South Africa?

They don’t teach history in many schools in Nigeria today, it is a subject that nobody cares about anymore. We need to teach our children history, right from the primary school level, for them to better understand the issues. They don’t teach history in my son’s school.

samumukoro.com

Femi Kuti talks ... 2013

Femi Kuti talks music, family and gays in Nigeria

 Nigerian Femi Kuti is the eldest son of famed Afrobeat innovator Fela Kuti. 


He joined Fela's band before creating his own group named Positive Force. He went on to be nominated for three Grammys as well as tour consistently ever since. His father, Fela, died of AIDS complications in the late '90s but has since been immortalized on Broadway with the musical Fela!

We tracked Kuti down all the way to Nigeria to find out the state of the world there and chat about his upcoming tour date in Chicago.

Windy City Media Group: Hello, Femi. Where in the world are you today?

Femi Kuti: I'm in Lagos, Nigeria.

WCT: When does the tour begin?

Femi Kuti: In 2013, I will constantly be on tour.

WCT: How long have you been performing?

Femi Kuti: Thirteen years plus…

WCT: Did you always feel a lot of pressure to perform, having such a legendary father?

Femi Kuti: Yes, since I was about 6 years old.

WCT: Even your son now plays saxophone.

Femi Kuti: Yes; right now he is in England studying the classical piano.

WCT: Does he go out on tour with you?

Femi Kuti: He did for years but he's in college now. I think it is more important for him to finish his studies.

WCT: Does he want to be a performer?

Femi Kuti: I'm not sure. He might be a producer. That's why it's so important for him to go now and decide what he wants to do. It's his call. I'm not going to be telling him what to do.

WCT: When your band Positive Force plays live, is it very improvisational?

Femi Kuti: It depends on the venue. We have a set list and know what we want to do but we can change it for the audience. We might decide to change a few tunes on the night of the show. We might get bored along the way and say we have to do it differently that night. What we are doing is taking selections from my new album coming out and previous albums.

WCT: When is the new album coming out?

Femi Kuti: Hopefully by the end of March, but definitely by April...

WCT: I heard it will be more Afrobeat-centered.

Femi Kuti: Yes, it will. It sounds great so far!

WCT: What will it be called?

Femi Kuti: No Place for My Dream.



WCT: Where did the title originate?

Femi Kuti: It came from me. It is my story on setting out to achieve freedom and justice. People are discouraging it, saying it is impossible and just a dream. I keep trying and I am determined. They say for me to wake up from my dream and this is reality; corruption will never end and your life will always be like this. I raise my voice but they say, "There is no place for my dream."

WCT: Speaking of oppression, how are gay people treated in Nigeria that you have noticed recently?

Femi Kuti: There are gay people here but it is not an open fact. I think there is a law against it but there are many gay people here. Nobody really talks about it.

WCT: So is gay society very underground?

Femi Kuti: I wouldn't say underground, but gay people don't flaunt it here. Everybody may know when there is a gay or lesbian person around, but it is not their business. The problem was that they wanted an open marriage but it is very conservative and religious here. Religious people are very adamant against it. Many of us have gay friends and people like me don't care. There are many fanatics that do and consider it taboo. They have the power sometimes.

WCT: Do you think the opinion of Nigeria has changed on the subject of AIDS?

Femi Kuti: I believe people are more enlightened about it now. There used to be a kind of stigma about it. It is not like in my father's time when nobody wanted to talk about it. There was a campaign that I was a big part of in 2000 for about four years. It has died down a bit. There is a lot of awareness about it now.

WCT: What did you think of the musical Fela?

Femi Kuti: I thought it was fantastic. I was very impressed.

WCT: It recently played in Chicago and is coming back for another run.

Femi Kuti: I love Chicago. I've always had a great time there. I've been there about nine times.

WCT: How many people are you bringing with you on the tour?

Femi Kuti: We are not bringing the whole band this time because one of the dancers left and to get a new visa was impossible. It takes about six months. So we will be 12 this time, one dancer short.

WCT: We will still make it a party. Looking forward to seeing the experience live.

Femi Kuti: Yes, by all means. I will see you there.


windycitymediagroup.com
 

Femi Kuti talking about Fela (March 2013)

Why I Didn’t Talk To Fela For Six Years

Fela Anikulapo’s son, Femi, tells OLUFEMI ATOYEBI and GBENGA ADENIJI what people didn’t know about the late Afrobeat musician.

Why did your father choose a controversial lifestyle?

It was because he was too honest about his way of life. He liked women and he did not hide it. He liked to smoke marijuana and he did it in the open. Many people like women but they do it secretly. There are so many brothels all around the world but Fela never patronised them, many people go there to pay for s**x.
You will be shocked to know the number of people that smoke marijuana in Nigeria and all over the world. I hope you know that some countries are legalising the smoking of marijuana now. He was truthful about his way of life while many of us are hypocritical about ours. Many people were envious that he was too honest and bold and that was why there were so many controversies about his life.

Most of his friends who are highly-placed admire women even girls young enough to be their daughters. They leave their matrimonial homes to meet them secretly. Some of them hide in hotels to do what they cannot do in the open. Many of them smoke but they are not brave enough to say they smoke. All the call girls you see on Allen Avenue, who picks them? Fela never did.

How was he able to manage his many wives?

It was very stressful for him. Do not forget that he divorced all of them. They were not faithful to him. When he decided to marry them, he did so for a reason. He said they had been with him in difficult times. They endured police harassment and beating. But they never left. Though they were very loyal to him, they still had a bad image in the public because people were calling them prostitutes.

He felt that the best way to protect them was to marry them. They became Fela’s queens, so the society had to respect them. I believe he loved them and he was already sleeping with them before he married them. It was not really a big deal to anybody that knew them. For instance, my mother knew this was happening so it was not a hidden thing. The big deal was how he was able to convince the 27 of them to marry him same day.

Did Fela talk you into music?

He did not influence me as such. I always knew I would go into music. It was just a question of how and when. He was however a big motivation in my life because every child wants to be like his or her father. The son of a plumber will want to be like his father, especially if he is learning the trade early. If the son loves the father, he will want to emulate him. I am not a different son. I love my father and wanted to do what he was doing. The only question hanging over that ambition was whether I could fulfil that ambition perfectly.

How did he punish any of his children who misbehaved?

He beat us. In fact, I was the one who got the most beating in the house when we were young.

Can you remember things you did that made him beat you?

I stole my mother’s £1 to buy chewing gum one day. You can imagine how many wraps of chewing gum that money would buy. They were not less than 100. My friend convinced me to go and steal the money but we were caught while chewing the gum. When my father asked me where I got the money from, I was speechless. I was still thinking of what to say when he started beating me with his hand. He then warned me never to steal again.

He also beat me when he caught me with cigarette in 1969. My mother used to smoke and he saw me put the cigarette in my mouth. I did not really smoke the cigarette because it was not lit, I only put it in my mouth but it angered him when he saw what I did. He beat me again and warned me not to touch cigarette again.
Why do you think it has been difficult to replicate Fela’s style of music?

It is so because the foundation of the band was truthful. He was not pretentious. He really believed in what he was saying. Despite all the police harassment, he was not moved. Many people would have gone to seek political asylum in another country but Fela did not do that. He had so many opportunities outside Nigeria and he would have taken advantage of them to run away from his enemies. These are the things that every generation admires in him.

What are those things you imbibed from your father?

I may not be able to mention them. In the way I deal with people, I am very truthful. If I say I am going to do something, I would do it. But I am more of my mother than my father. My elder sister has more of my father than I do. I am more of a practical person. If I plan to do something, I will think of the consequences. My father would never weigh any decision before executing it. If he planned to go to Dodan Barracks, he would just go there. As for me, I make plans before I do anything. My father would not write a Will. But because I know that I could get killed, I had written my Will a long ago.

I know that in a divorce case, my wife could claim one third of my property, so I would not go into wedlock. The most important thing to me right now are my children. Now, I will not play to the gallery. I will not say because people love me, they must come first before my family. Who are my family? My children of course. So, whether you love me or not, I will let you know that my children come before you, take it or leave it. I live this way because I learnt from my father’s life, the decisions he took and the consequences. When you learn from someone, you don’t have to do what he did. Fela did what he did for his own reasons. I cannot criticise why he did what he did.

Also, we must remember the stardom. Nobody was as big as my father. He had over 100 people around him daily when he became a star. I cannot live like that because I don’t want too many people around me. I saw what people did to him. It was too much. I can keep the Afrika Shrine open to everybody but not my house.

If you come to my home, you will only see me, my kids and may be my girlfriend. Sometimes, my friends visit but I don’t keep a crowd around for any reason, my father did. I like women but I saw the harassment he went through with 27 wives. It is not that I don’t want 27 wives but I know what will happen because of what happened to my father. I can’t tell a woman that I will be faithful in our relationship. That was part of the problem of my marriage. I cannot be faithful. I will not lie about that. It is not that I cannot be faithful, but I cannot start my relationship by saying I am going to be faithful till death do us part. There are possibilities that if another woman comes and I like her, I cannot give the assurance that I will not have an affair with her. I have no intention whatsoever to bring all of them under one roof. My intention now is to cater for my children and do my job to the best of my ability.

Did Fela have any special food?

He ate any food. He liked cakes and ice cream too. I don’t like cakes. I can eat ice cream and chocolate once in a while but my father loved them all. If somebody is celebrating and there is a cake, I can take a little piece not to offend my host. My father could die for cakes. If you visited him and looked inside his refrigerator, you would see lots of cake in it.

Your father did not hide his hatred for western medicine. Is it the same with you?

I grew up not liking tablets too. I grew up to be a traditionalist like my dad. But I later realised that there are too many fake traditional medicine in our society. The government must understand that many of these herbs are claiming the lives of our people. We must ask ourselves which of the herbs has been scientifically proven to cure malaria and the ailment they claim to cure. I once had malaria and I drank herbs but I was not cured. I felt very uncomfortable. I will not say that herb does not work because Africa believes in it. It is a fact that we did survive before orthodox medicine came.

There was African traditional medicine, but where is it today? Everywhere, you will see people hawking herbs, saying it work for this and that. People buy them and mix with hot drinks. Really, when you are mixing alcohol with herbs, you are damaging your liver. While you think you are curing one thing, if it does work, you are damaging another thing in your body. Until we have concrete fact to say something works for the body, we will be deceiving ourselves.

Why do you think Fela hated former President Olusegun Obasanjo?

Olusegun Obasanjo was a bad leader. He did not do well for Nigeria. He ruled this country three times but has nothing to show for it. They called the soldiers that burnt Kalakuta Republic and killed my grandmother unknown soldiers. The Federal Government is yet to apologise for their action against the Kuti family. Whether they like it or not, Fela was one of the biggest stars from Africa. As the days go by, people are beginning to understand the importance of his music. The Lagos State Government is building a museum in his honour. The family does not have that kind of money to build a museum. It is not the governor’s money but the state government money. But the governor took the decision on behalf of the people.

Another museum is also being built Ogun State. Governors are beginning to understand that Kuti’s name cannot be swept under the carpet. The family has done so much for Nigeria and the world. Many people are playing afrobeat style of music today because Fela invented it. Some people are saying he did not start it. But the question is: Who started it and stood firm using the music creatively? Fela stood for many great things and his contribution to the society cannot be pushed aside.

Did he have time to take the family out for leisure?

In 1967, I remember that he took us to Onikan swimming pool and also Federal Palace Hotel. That was the first and last outing for fun with us. He always made it clear that he was not a conventional father. He did not want us to go to school not because he did not like education, but because he believed that education was colonial. He believed that it was structured to show that Europe is supreme and Africa is not good. Even when he took me out of school in my fourth year in secondary school, I had acquired vast knowledge about the outside world through the books I read at home. I was known as a professor in the Kalakuta Republic. I read books such as Blackman and Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. I read so much that I even found there was a Pharaoh Kuti in Egypt. I wondered if this Egyptian Pharaoh Kuti was in any way related to the Kuti family in Nigeria. My father said we are probably related.

Which school were you attending before Fela made that decision?

I was studying at Baptist Academy and he withdrew me from there when Obasanjo deployed soldiers to the school. I later went to Igbobi College and spent a year. He advised me to leave the school in form four. Many believed I would become a nonentity because of his action. There was disagreement within the family, my mother was against it, but my dad stood his ground. She wondered why my dad took me out of school when he went to one of the best schools in the UK.

She also said since he did not teach me music how then would I be great in life? My father told her not to worry that I would be great. I was not happy too and did not speak to him for six years. He told me that he was confident that I would be great. I did not know what he saw in me. The day my album, Wonder Wonder, became popular and I was becoming a household name in Nigeria, he called our family members and told them that the same boy he withdrew from school had become a successful musician.

At that time, it was only my father and King Sunny Ade that were travelling abroad frequently for musical concerts. But I suddenly started travelling abroad more than the two of them because I was becoming known more outside the country.

Will I do the same for my son? No. He will get a good education. I will let him understand street life which I grew up to know so that he will have a feel of it, but he must be formally educated.

Where were you when soldiers invaded Kalakuta Republic?

I was coming back from the school when I saw the soldiers. They wanted to arrest me. But I managed to escape through a place called Alagbole behind Kalakuta. I ran and went to pick my younger sister at Mary Magdalene Primary School. We then crossed over the railway and went home.

Is there anything you miss about Fela?

I miss his being a grandfather. I think he would have been a fantastic grandfather. He had already been showing the signs with my sister’s daughter and my son. He died in 1997 and my son was born in 1995. I know that what he was not able to do for us, he would have done for our children if he were still alive.


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