Afrobeat Across Generations
by Oyebade Dosunmu
(photos by Santiago Felipe)

It was a pleasant afternoon in Central Park . People of every hue and type crowded the space between the bleachers and stage which had been erected on the Rumsey Playfield for the Summer-Stage events. Some sat on spread out mats, basking in the mild heat—the bleachers were filled to capacity—but most stood shoulder to shoulder, beer and the occasional barbecue in hand. And still more people poured into the venue. It was clearly a highly anticipated event and now that it was finally about to happen, there was an auspicious, even festive feeling in the air. Backstage, I hobnobbed wide-eyed with members of the legendary Egypt 80, the last of several rebirths of the band which Fela led throughout his long and illustrious career. But today, the group would be fronted by his son, Seun Anikulapo Kuti, the youngest of Fela’s famous progeny.

U-Roy and Love Trio kicked off the afternoon’s performances with a dub/reggae set, followed by Afrika Bambaataa who salutarily threw some Fela into his vintage hip-hop mix. I could hear the audience responding to the artists with excitement. I knew I was missing something good by not being out in the crowd, but right then I was more excited about the opportunity I had to interview Baba Ani, one of Fela’s most enduring musicians and Egypt 80’s long time band leader. At one point during the interview, he said in a wistful voice, “most of the young generation don’t know who Fela is. The young people want to go for the simple music.” He was referring to the hip-hop craze that is currently sweeping over Nigeria, the rest of Africa and the world at large.  I thought about the predominantly American, mostly young crowd outside, obvious fans of Afrobeat. Earlier, I’d even run into several musician friends, again Americans,  who played in New York Afrobeat bands, some of which have now been around for at least 10 years. America may have given the world hip-hop, but Nigeria had given America Afrobeat, and judging from the enthusiasm of the audience, it was a gift that wasn’t about to expire.

Finally, Egypt 80 is announced. Showboy (Adedimeji Fagbemi), another veteran Egypt 80 member gets on stage and begins a choreographed introduction of the band. One after the other, the musicians take their places on stage as their names are called, consecutively adding their instruments to the brewing polyrhythmic storm. A syncopated tenor guitar dances sinuously around a steadily marching hi-hat, accentuated by the staggered click-clack of the Afrobeat clave. Next, a rhythm guitar provides a stuttering tinkle which is soon balanced off by mellow keyboard sounds. Shekere, congas, kick, snare and bass follow suit, each one adding a different layer of complexity to the groove. Then the monstrous horns begin to blast, infusing a gust of power into the now raging storm. Saxophone and trumpet solos are played in turn before Showboy introduces the dancers whose gyrating movements add an element of spectacle to the performance.  Finally, Showboy begins to sing, chant-like in pidgin English: Don’t give that sh*t to me…./we don carry many sh*t for Africa/Political sh*t, economic sh*t/Oyinbo bring sh*t for Africa/Africans come dey give demsleves bullsh*t for Africa... The lyrics are political, decrying on the one hand, the western colonial legacy imposed on Africa, and on the other hand, Africans who continue to perpetrate corruption and inhumanity towards one another. The backup dancers intone their support in Yoruba: A gbe gbe gbe o su wa, we’ve carried this burden too long! The audience may not fully grasp the message of the song, but they clearly know what Afrobeat represents, they know it is a musical weapon against all forms of tyranny and oppression, and they show their support in that universally sublime gesture of liberation: dance.

The party revs up when at the end of his song, Showboy announces “the son of the legend of Africa, Fela, Seun Anikulapo Kuti!” It is Seun’s second US tour, but his first since the release of debut CD. “What’s happening America?” Seun bellows into the microphone, and the crowd responds with ecstatic roars. “This song is titled Gbamileti which means slap me; a song written by my father, I usually start with it in honor of the man, Fela…” It is a silly song which depicts a brawl in which one man calls another’s bluff: just hit me in the face and I’ll make you pay—literarily, in cash. The two men, undoubtedly Lagosians, are probably cooped up in a seedy Lagos bar, they’re drunk, broke, and aggressively acting out their frustrations in a manner that must seem hysterical to amused onlookers. Yet the brawlers take themselves so seriously that the result is nothing short of hyperbolic: Hit me, the underdog reiterates, and the government of Africa will swiftly intervene.     

It might seem out of place to some that Seun Kuti chose to start his set with such an apolitical song. Even stranger to learn that the song was originally composed and performed by Fela. But Fela wasn’t always a political musician. His songs became more and more political as he responded to the decaying political institutions in his own country and the overall unbalanced state of world affairs. Yes, the elements of satire and social commentary were always in his music, but the abrasive, radical politics that Fela is known for today only emerged in his music much later. The other humorist side of Fela, though often subsumed under the looming politicized image, is just as integral to his personality, and his art. It is refreshing that Seun decides to begin his set on this humorous note, reminding us that in the end, the music is just as much about dancing and having a good time as it is about protest.

And throughout Seun’s performance, humor is the wave on which political commentary rides. Before he sings “Na Oil,” he explains, “In Africa our governments are more about their Swiss accounts than our lives. This song is begging them sarcastically to please respect our lives in Africa.” Then, there is the sensuous “Fire dance,” a riveting groove that simply asks us to do de dance, and shake am like fire! Even a song about malaria awareness in Africa has the cartoonish title “Mosquito Song.”

It is surely expected that Afrobeat DNA, with its twin helices of humor and radical protest, would flow through Seun Anikulapo Kuti. What is spectacular, however, is the uncanny verisimilitude between father and son. On stage, Seun’s fitted shirt and pants, his limber twists and jerks, even his husky voice all channel Fela remarkably. The result is sometimes downright creepy. “Fela is not dead,” Baba Ani had announced with conviction earlier during our interview. It could very well have been Fela prancing and wailing in Central Park on that memorable Saturday afternoon. One observer commented: “When you think about Bob Marley’s sons, and even Femi Kuti, they all fall short when compared to their legendary fathers, but this guy, Seun, is the real deal.”

Do such glowing endorsements by an adoring fan base go to Seun’s head, especially when it elevates him above his older brother and puts him at par with his father? I was able to judge for myself on a lazy Sunday afternoon last December, when I was opportuned to interview Seun in his inherited Kalakuta abode located in Lagos, Nigeria. The first thing I noticed when I arrived for the interview was the modesty of the site, a fading, unassuming three-level house with a roof-top deck. I didn’t observe any body guards, nor pass through grueling security checks at the gate, just some women and a little boy who led me through unadorned hallways to Seun’s bedroom. There, some friends of the musician—ordinary looking people—were lounged on a mattress placed starkly on the floor, playing Xbox soccer. I didn’t have to wait too long for Seun who appeared in a simple caftan. He was very laid back, very affable. During our one hour long conversation, we talked and bantered about many things, including soccer, of which Seun, who studied popular music and sound technology at the Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts, is a huge fan. Referring to the English league match to be broadcast live on TV later that afternoon, he jabbed at his friends, “I can’t wait to see them (Arsenal) whoop Manchester United…you guy’s are here to cry.” And then in mock consolation, he offered, “Don’t worry, I’ll buy shayo (booze) so that you people will be drunk, you won’t feel it too much, I’m telling you, it’s going to be disaster!” I brought up the issue of authenticity in his brother, Femi’s music which has been criticized as being too poppy, and lacking the grit so essential to Afrobeat. Seun responded with nothing but solidarity “whoever is not happy with the way my brother is doing his Afrobeat can write his own Afrobeat!”And this sense of deference is perhaps the most endearing trait of one so talented, so blessed with an esteemed heritage.

Seun’s musical genes may very well have been guaranteed from birth—his mother, Fehintola Anikulapo Kuti was a backup of singer and dancer for Fela—but this hasn’t made him impervious to criticism. At the age of 14, Seun took over as front man for Egypt 80 following his father’s demise. Stepping into Fela’s shoes has understandably been a burden, but not for reasons of inexperience as one could expect. In fact Seun was criticized in the early years of his musical career for being too much like his father—the very thing fans praise so much about him today! Says Seun, “My musical career has not been the best of rides. I started performing with my dad on stage when I was eight. I started opening the show, you know, I used to sing Sorrow, Tears and Blood then…People used to be like, yeah, yeah, look at this small boy singing and dancing…For some reason, by the time I was 14, people were already comparing me to my dad, you know, but not for my own benefit. They were doing it to try to bring me down and stuff. Basically, for me, doing what I was doing, I thought people should be proud that yeah, someone could do this at the age of 14. Because I was playing my father’s songs—they didn’t see that I could play the piano well, they couldn’t see that I could play the sax well—all they were saying was that he didn’t write his songs, he doesn’t have his album, he hasn’t written a song.”

Today, Seun may not have warmed himself into every critic’s heart—and as should be, he probably never will—but the balance is clearly more tipped in his favor than ever was. At 26, Seun continues to front his father’s Egypt 80 band with which he has released his debut CD. He wrote five of the seven original songs on the CD. The other two songs were written by Lekan Animashaun (Baba Ani) and Adedimeji Fagbemi (Showboy), a gesture which Seun says is necessary in order to show that everyone is involved. “A lot of people would have quit a long time ago,” he says, “I am happy I have not lost focus, and I stayed with what I believed in, and it has taken me to the top of my game.”

And he is also in top spirits. The young musician whom, to many, represents the future of Afrobeat music, is optimistic about the future of the genre. “Afrobeat has respect now, everybody is involved. Big names are talking about it; major labels are trying to sign Afrobeat artists, so it is interesting where Afrobeat music now is in the world.” In reality, Afrobeat, like world music in general, remains a niche market product, but the inroads it has made globally, particularly in underground music circuits, is remarkable. Since Fela died in 1997, bands of young non-Nigerian aficionados have taken up the style, extending its sphere of influence in metropolitan cities from New York City and San Francisco to London and Paris. As befits a true heir, Seun Kuti rides not only on the legacy of his father and brother, but also on the awareness made possible by the numerous contemporary Afrobeat bands out there. The truth is, all are heirs to the Afrobeat legacy who have access to the genres’ infectious rhythmic formula and most importantly, a cause.

With increasing awareness usually comes corporate co-optation. Commodification, which has bedeviled many formerly underground musical styles, may not, in realistic terms, be completely avoidable. However, Seun Kuti hangs on to more than a glimmer of hope. While he acknowledges that the choice to be commercial is ultimately the artists’ he is confident that “there are people that will always do the right thing.” He expounds, “Afrobeat…is more than a genre, it is a movement, so it will and should not compromise…because of commercial success.” Like all flourishing movements, Afrobeat, which has at it ideological core, a pan-African call for liberation, has grown to embrace a wide range of causes, from green campaigns in San Francisco to voter drives in New York City.  It is the genres’ apparently inextricable association with causes worldwide that will probably protect it from complete commodification and guarantee its social relevance amongst musicians and fans across generations.

First published: By Oyebade Dosunmu. Photos-Santiago Fe