For Seun Kuti rising up within the shadow of a well-known father was extra blessing than curse. “I’m used to being my father’s son,” the singer and political activist laughs down the road from his house in Lagos. “I’ve been his son for 40 years. I believe I’ve received the cling of it.”
Seun is the youngest son of Fela Kuti, one of many greats of African music and a pioneer of Afrobeat, a West African style that mixes African music with American jazz and blues. He’s carrying on his father’s legacy in a extremely seen method by fronting Fela’s group, Egypt 80, whom he brings to Eire for the Guinness Cork Jazz Competition. In Nigeria, there’s an assumption that Seun “inherited” Egypt 80 from his dad upon his loss of life in 1997. In actual fact, the method was carrying on was extra natural and casual.
“I’ve been within the band since I used to be eight. I used to go and do exhibits with my dad. From after I was 14 to the day my father died, I performed each week on the Shrine [a performance space established by Fela in 1971]. So when he died, we determined to maintain enjoying. There wasn’t a rule: ‘Oh Seun needs to be the one’. Of all of the the children, I used to be the one who might work with the band or preserve the spirit going. It was by no means imposed. That’s what I really like about it — we selected one another.”
He and Egypt 80 have performed Eire beforehand and his recollections of these events are heat. As are his recollections of working with Sinéad O’Connor, with whom he duetted on her 2014 album, I’m Not Bossy, I’m The Boss. He remembers O’Connor as a delicate soul for whom music was about self-discovery reasonably than industrial acquire.
“John Reynolds [O’Connor’s producer] known as me as much as bounce on the monitor. I used to be really honoured. We knocked out in a number of hours. Sinéad — her soul is trying to find that which transcends her. She was at all times going to go above and past ‘self’, which is one thing I respect about her.”
Fela Kuti was a musical innovator. He was additionally a rallying determine in Nigeria and was outspoken in regards to the want for solidarity amongst African nations. In 1979 he based the Motion of the Individuals (MOP) — which had the purpose of “cleansing up society like a mop” (therefore the acronym).
MOP was revived by Seun a number of years in the past and he’s an everyday presence on Nigerian tv, calling out corruption and criticising the embedded elites who management the nation and its wealth. He feels that each musician ought to have a political element to their work: in any other case what’s all of it for?
“Every part on this world is political,” he says. “Many artists on the earth are content material to cover, to disavow their duty in direction of humanity or in direction of nature. In direction of the way forward for this planet. For me, the mainstream, the firms — they like these form of artists, who can distract individuals. Make them [the audience] blame themselves for the ills of the world. As an alternative of dealing with the true evil destroying the world, which is imperialism, capitalism, oppression.
“The exploitation and oppression of huge variety of working class individuals over the world. As an artist, it is extremely necessary to my effectively being that I’m trustworthy to my existence. And that my existence is captured by my artwork.”
He additionally feels it is very important fight damaging stereotypes. “Lagos is sort of a vibrant metropolis. It has 12 million of extra. However there’s corruption all over the place. I’m not one who buys into rhetoric the place the actions of some are used to color the entire of a nation in a sure gentle.”
He contrasts the best way through which individuals from across the globe are, or will not be, caricatured. “No person goes round saying Individuals are all baby-killers as a result of individuals in America go into colleges and kill individuals each week. A number of Africans commit against the law after which everybody from that area is dangerous. There are 200 million individuals in Nigeria. Possibly 300 million on the earth. If we had been really dangerous, the world would know.”
He’s been holding busy since lockdown. Kuti has additionally been reflecting on the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter protests, which had been as seismic in Lagos as anyplace else on the earth.
“Black Lives Matter was a giant factor in Nigeria. It impressed us to grasp that we, as African individuals, have to organise ourselves and rise up. One of many African manifestations of Black Lives Matter was the SARS protests in Nigeria [SARS standing for Special Anti-Robbery Squad]. Which had been additionally grounded in police brutality. That is the place you need to perceive what African individuals are going via all around the world is systemic.”
He believes racism is basically systemic reasonably than about people and their prejudices. “Once we see cops brutalising African individuals in America or Europe, possibly you perceive it as a result of the cops are white. You see the cop is a racist. However if you come to Africa all of the cops are black — and so they’re doing the identical factor. So it’s not in regards to the officer himself being racist. It’s the institute of policing itself that’s racist.”
This isn’t simply true of policing he says. “The banks all around the world — you have got the identical story. The best way African individuals can not get loans in banks in America and Europe — it’s the identical with Africans not capable of get loans from banks in Africa. From so-called ‘black-owned banks’. So it’s not about who owns the financial institution sidelining African individuals. It’s the establishment of banking itself that does that.”
Along with Sinéad O’Connor, Kuti has a protracted record of collaborators. He’s labored with Chicago rapper Widespread and in September launched another model of his single Kuku Kee Me remixed by Black Thought, aka Roots rapper Tarik Luqmaan Trotter.
“That happened throughout lockdown,” he says of the Black Thought document. “Many artists couldn’t specific themselves artistically to the world. We began expressing ourselves inwardly. In that second you have got readability – you may discuss to different artists. You guys are sharing concepts. That’s precisely how that happened.”
And it’s that spirit of collaboration which he’ll convey to Cork for the Jazz Competition. After a three-year hiatus on account of Covid, Cork Jazz 2022 guarantees to be a coming-together to recollect. And Seun Kuti and Egypt 80 will likely be there on the coronary heart of the motion, reminding us that the most effective music at all times finds its viewers and that true artwork is aware of no borders.
- As a part of the Guinness Cork Jazz Competition, Seun Kuti and Fela’s Egypt 80 play the Everyman Theatre on Saturday, October 29; and Dwell at St Lukes, Sunday, October 30
