the hum / By Bob Doran

No Bubblegum

Seun Kuti, son of Fela on the power of music — plus, the Reggae War is over!

(June 19, 2008)  His father, the late great Fela Anikulapo Kuti, was the godfather of the politically sharp, seriously funky music genre known as Afrobeat. Seun Anikulapo Kuti is carrying the torch forward, blowing sax and singing as leader of Fela’s old band, Egypt 80. While headquarters is still his hometown — Lagos, Nigeria — Seun is currently on a world tour in support of a new album, Seun Kuti & Egypt 80, that will bring him to Humboldt County on Monday, June 23, for a show at the Mateel. The Journal caught up with him in Paris via cellphone.

Seun started singing with Egypt 80 at Fela’s nightclub, The Shrine, when he was eight years old, and took over the lead when his father died. He was just 14. That was 10 years ago. The music he’s making today seems just as fresh and relevant as when Fela was leading the band. When I suggested that he’s pulled the Afrobeat movement into the 21st century, he disagreed.

GALLERY >

“I don’t think so,” he told me. “Afrobeat has always been in the 21st century. Afrobeat was about to go global in a big way when Fela died. He was about to do a world tour that would have brought the music worldwide, but he died. We went on without him, but it’s a misconception when they say Afrobeat sounds like old music, that it needs to be changed, to be fused with new music. They said we had to add some funk and some soul to make it new. I don’t believe that. Afrobeat is evergreen, the albums are classics. One of the rules of Afrobeat is that every song has to have an everlasting meaning to it. I believe Afrobeat has always been in the future. The world is just now catching up to it.”

Is it still the music you hear on the street in Nigeria?

“It is the music of the masses too, for all times. It does not always get the support given to the bubblegum music that we have everywhere now.”

Like your father, you are speaking out against the corrupt leadership of your country. That’s what got Fela in trouble with the government. Have you faced the same kind of resistance from the authorities?

“Of course, of course. It goes without saying in Africa. It’s been the same for years. I understood from a young age that Afrobeat was more than just a genre, it was a movement, you know. So I decided to leave behind my education in Liverpool to join the movement, and that’s what I did. Now I fight with the movement. And I know the consequences.”

Do you think a musical movement can change things [politically]?

1 2 3 NEXT PAGE >SHARE