‘Ah, what you mean, can I sing? Of course I can sing.’
“‘Okay. Sing for me. Let me hear.’ So I sang ‘Sorrow Tears and Blood.’ Well, he corrected some few words. Not key. Not notes. Just words. So he said, ‘Ah, okay, you can sing.’ When we got back to Lagos, we started rehearsing with the band. Boom. That was my audition.”
Seun began singing the opening number at Fela’s Friday-night gigs at the Shrine, a ritual he continued until Fela died six years later. Fela’s death devastated both his family and the band. “Big hole. Big void. Catastrophe. Chaos,” recalled Seun. The Afrobeat king had shunned all medicines in favour of “self-healing,” so his chances of surviving aids — which he had dismissed as a “white man’s disease” and refused even to be tested for — were non-existent. Just the same, recalled Seun, “Nobody thought that man could die.” Fela’s brother and closest confidant, Beko, would have been the logical person to assuage the family’s turmoil. Unfortunately, Beko was in prison at the time for his activism under President Sani Abacha. Seun and Femi have strikingly different recollections of what happened next.
In Seville, Seun recounted a poignant tale of how the family met, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, and collectively decided to disband Egypt 80. “Here I am,” he recalled, “sitting in the living room with the family of my dad, and they are basically telling the greatest band in Africa, ‘You are no more important. Just go away.’ And it hit me. Because growing up, my dad used to always say, ‘My band is the most important thing in this world to me.’ Even before his family, even before himself.” On the strength of that, fourteen-year-old Seun summoned the courage to break cultural etiquette and speak up to his elders. “What if I keep playing with the band,” he asked, “and we keep what we make?” Thus began his struggle to lead Egypt 80, despite receiving “absolutely no support” from the family, save his uncle Beko, who backed him upon being released from prison.
Speaking by telephone from Lagos, Femi recalled the family deciding they must do whatever they could to “keep this band alive.” He said he offered to help in this, but the musicians had other ideas. “When my father died,” he said, “the band had a meeting and said that he, Seun, was the guy they were going to support, and they did not want to have anything to do with me. As far as they were concerned, Fela did not give me any blessing.” Femi painted himself and his side of the family as outcasts. This all goes back to his mother, Remi, mistrusted by some in the family, in part because her West Indian ancestry included white people. “They gave all these weird excuses,” said Femi. “My mother has white blood, and Seun was a true-blooded African. Everybody was against me. Even all the press was against me. It was a ten-year battle.”
The brothers’ stories may not be as contradictory as they seem. If Seun and the musicians of Egypt 80 mistrusted Femi and his band that much, plans to make Femi their saviour would have felt like abandonment. However it went down, lines were drawn, and the brother found themselves in opposing family factions.
Seun’s own battle culminated in 2007, with his first recording, Seun Kuti and Egypt 80, due out in June. The album was produced by veteran French maestro Martin Meissonnier, a force behind Nigerian juju star King Sunny Ade’s breakout release Juju Music in 1982. The seven grooving tracks on Seun’s CD hew more closely to the relaxed, ultra-funky Fela sound than to most of Femi’s more experimental work. There is nothing as bold as “Zombie” or “Coffin for Head of State” here, but while Seun may not name names he does point fingers. “Afrobeat was created for the emancipation of the black mind,” said Seun in Seville. “Basically, we have rulers in Africa right now. We used to have leaders in the ’50s and ’60s, but you Brits, Europeans, and Americans conspired and sent your cia to kill all of them.”
Seun displays no hard feelings, just states the facts — albeit with impish irreverence, the same light touch he brings to bear on the CD’s catchy “Many Things,” a darkly humorous survey of daily life in Nigeria. “Laughter is the best medicine for me,” he explained. “It doesn’t mean I don’t think about what to do. But you don’t expect me to suicide-bomb myself.” He trash-talks exploitative foreign interests out to plunder African riches in “Don’t Give That Shit to Me,” an uptempo chicken-scratch vamp that culminates in the august, tuneful blare of the world’s most satisfying brass section.
Seun deals with the problem of malaria in Africa (“Mosquito Song”) and the vexing issues surrounding oil in the Niger Delta (“Na Oil”). He finds no good guys in that situation. Oil companies pay off government officials, who turn a blind eye as they pocket money. Meanwhile, so-called freedom fighters kidnap people for cash, then spend it on suvs and fancy clothes. “If I was in the Niger Delta,” Seun mused, “I wouldn’t kidnap white people. I would be kidnapping government officials, man.” Sensing he might have crossed a line, He hastened to add, “I’m not advising anybody to do that.”
Seun Kuti and Egypt 80 is a superb debut that promises to make Fela’s youngest son an instant heavyweight in international world music circles. Back home in Lagos, success won’t come so easily. Afrobeat greybeards still view Seun as the kid contender, notching his way up a long ladder. For their parts, both Femi and Seun say their feud is now over. points to the fact that many of the conflict’s supporting players, including both men’s mothers, have died in recent years. “He’s older now,” said Femi of Seun. “I think he realized there was no basis for the fight in the first place. So he came and apologized. What can we do? I cannot just accept his apology.” As of last fall, Seun and Egypt 80 have begun performing at Femi’s New Africa Shrine. While the trust between the brothers remains fragile, they are poised to write a new chapter in the Afrobeat epic, ever tottering between comedy and tragedy.
