MUSIC-NIGERIA: Afrobeat King’s Legacy Lives On

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, Oct 13 1998 (IPS) - Nigeria pays homage Saturday (Oct 17) to the King of Afrobeat Fela Anikulapo-Kuti – who would have turned 60 that day but for his untimely death from an AIDS-releated disease more than a year ago.

The concert, organised by the ‘Fela Foundation’, will bring together a host of Nigerian musicians, including Kuti’s sons Femi and Seun as well as Kuti’s ‘Egypt 80 Band’. They will perform at the Tafawa Balewa Square, traditional site of most international musical jamborees in Lagos.

“This is the first commemorative birthday bash for Fela Kuti since he passed away. Last October the occasion was marked only with the inauguration of the ‘Fela Foundation’, nothing elaborate took place during that day,” says Steve Ayo, a fan.

The daytime concert will have free admission in appreciation of the loyalty over the years by Kuti’s fans and Fela Foundation interim chairman, Ben Murray-Bruce, expects hundreds of thousands of fans to attend the celebration.

Murray-Bruce succeeded Rasheed Gbadamosi, a childhood friend of Kuti, who has been appointed Minister of National Planning by Nigeria’s military ruler, General Abdulsalami Abubakar.

Murray-Bruce described the concert as “not a sufficient tribute to this great Nigerian, who has done a lot in ensuring that the masses of our dear country have something positive to hold onto”.

He said a concert would be held every Oct. 17 to commemorate the Afrobeat King’s birthday. The no-gate-fee concept will be retained, he said. This year’s show, which will be aired live by a private radio station in Lagos, is being sponsored by corporate interests which hope to use the event to promote their products as well as identify with Kuti’s legacy.

The French Cultural Centre in Lagos also is taking active part in the celebration. Fela is believed to be more popular in France than any other country outside Nigeria.

The French largesse has also been extended to Kuti’s eldest son Femi, who relies heavily on several interests in that country to promote his musical group, known as the “Positive Band”.

Since his death on Aug 2, 1997 of heart failure attributed to the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), many projects have sprang up in Kuti’s honour. A tomb is being planned as a pilgrimage site for tourists and for Kuti’s fans from all over the world.

The Music Foundation of Nigeria held a memorial lecture for Kuti, which examined the musician’s life and works, describing him, as a “great son of Africa”. The lecture unravelled the story surrounding Fela’s “myth” and his “cynicism” about society.

Kuti strongly identified with the poor, an issue which featured in most of his albums. “The late Afrobeat legend was not pleased by the hypocritical stance of African leaders, especially in Nigeria where the military and a few individuals who constitute the political class have held the country hostage for too long,” says Bayo Martins of the Fela Foundation.

Fela, who blended high-life, soul and jazz to form the Afrobeat music, had churned out more than 40 albums using his native Yoruba language and pidgin English, spoken in Nigeria and Anglophone West Africa.

Because of his constant attacks on government through his music, he had had bruises with the Nigerian military authorities. His Lagos home, which he named “Kalakuta Republic”, was attacked by the military in 1977, an event captured in his album “Kalakuta Show”.