Push to preserve Fela Kuti’s legacy15 years after death

LAGOS (AFP) – The spirit of Fela Kuti haunts his old house — the musician’s colourful clothes in the bedroom, his shoes on a rack — but the marijuana smoke, his many wives and his beguiling sax playing are long gone.
Thursday marks 15 years since the death of Kuti, the Nigerian Afrobeat musician who became a global icon thanks to his unique sound, his wild lifestyle and his harsh criticism of his country’s corrupt military regimes.
He is far from forgotten, both here and in many places abroad, and his family has been working to further preserve Kuti’s legacy, including efforts to turn his last house into a museum — the reason his bedroom was left as is.

 

The music of Fela Kuti, the legendary pioneer of Afro beat, was resurrected by his sons performing at the Festival international de jazz de Montreal this week, a decade after his death. Some 100,000 spectators crammed into the city center to welcome his youngest son, Seun Kuti. His brother Femi played for 2,000 at a local hall. Surrounded by musicians who played with his father in the band Egypt'80, an animated Seun Kuti unleashed some of Fela Kuti's classic tunes -- a hybrid of jazz, soul, and Nigerian "yoruba" music, spiced with political rants. Born in 1938 in Nigeria, Fela Anikulapo Kuti created and refined with three groups Nigeria'70, Africa'70, and then with Egypt'80 a unique blend of Afro beat in the 1960s and early 1970s.

A saxophonist primarily, but proficient with a multitude of instruments, he recorded almost 50 albums with sensual rythmns and harsh criticisms of corrupt African regimes, Nigeria's military junta which he described as "zombies," and human rights abuses. A renown playboy, he died of AIDS on August 2, 1997. At age 15, his son Seun, a mirror image of his dad, took the reigns of Egypt'80. "After my father's death nobody in the family wanted to do anything with the band. My brother had his own thing ... I said let's just keep playing and see what happens," Seun Kuti said. "The band was the most important thing for my dad. I did not want the band to die," he explained. "We started really slow but then people started to come in and say (the band) was still good. I cannot say I was a professionnal, because before my father's death performing for me was just fun on Fridays."

A decade later, Afro beat has attracted a huge following far beyond its birthplace in Lagos, with its apostles Seun and Femi Kuti, as well as bands such as New Yorkers Antibalas and Montreal's Afrodizz, playing gigs worldwide. Femi Kuti set a concert hall on fire with his bebop provoking 2,000 fans to gyrate and boogie, before ending the show with a list of problems in Africa from poverty to Western hegemony. "I'm preoccupied by what is happening in my country, Nigeria, but on each of my albums you'll find songs that talk about problems common to all of us," he told reporters. Contrary to his brother Seun, who is focused on guarding his father's legacy, Femi, 45, prefers to explore new crossings of Afro beat with songs like "Traitors of Africa" and "Stop AIDS." "Afrobeat is nuclear right now. It explodes, it is everywhere. I was checking on the internet there is even a band in Israel, in Japan," said Seun."Before my father's death, it was only (Africans) who listened to Afro beat, but right now it is a global phenomenon," he enthused.But while the West can enjoy the sound, it remains a necessity in Africa, he added. "Without Afro beat in my country, nobody would say anything."