Menu


Femi Kuti: alive and kicking

Musician and fighter


Paris 

12/11/2008 - 

Femi Kuti – champion of afro-beat, the highly charged fusion music invented by his father, the late, great Fela Kuti – talks about his latest release, Day By Day. Exciting and original, Day By Day is Femi’s fifth album.

print

send

react



The album was recorded in Paris and produced by French studio wiz Sodi (Négresses Vertes, IAM, Têtes Raides, Fela, etc.) who has worked with Femi since his 1998 release Shoki Shoki. Femi’s turbo-charged music cooks up a storm with lyrics brimming with rebel rage, wild brass sounds and furious vocals. But there is also a touch of swing in there and some gentler moments, plus a number of guests whose presence adds to the originality of the work. They include Seb Martel (guitar), Patrick Goraguer (keyboards), and the singers Camille and Julia Sarr, and Keziah Jones.

RFI Musique: Are you still angry, Femi?
Femi Kuti: Everything I denounced and predicted ten years ago, when I was making Shoki Shoki, has got even worse. Obasanjo [the Nigerian president until 2007] destroyed the country. There is no democracy in Africa. As for Europe and the United States, they were hypocrites when they promised to invest in Africa to aid development. Our battles of today are the same ones as yesterday.

What do you denounce in the title track of Day By Day?
I say what all people of the land say.  Day by day, they struggle to get work, to save themselves from despair and poverty. Day by day, they hope for peace.

Do you see anywhere in Africa a leader who could turn the continent around and who could be an example?
We have to be realistic, there are no visionaries among those in power, who would fight against corruption and in favour of justice.

What solution is there for the future?
When an African representative has a seat at the UN to talk for all of Africa as a single people, then maybe things might start to change.

Your pan-African ideas are similar to those of your father Fela, who died in 1997 and whose name you mention on the track Do You know…
I’m aware of everything I owe him and I am proud to talk about him. It’s thanks to his music that I know some things, and thanks to music that my son in turn will know even more. Music is the weapon of the future, as Fela used to say. Father-son relations are always very important, especially in Africa. When Fela died, the press in Nigeria started to attack me. They said that I wasn’t like him, that my mother, who is English and of mixed blood, was white and so I couldn’t legitimately be his successor. The Nigerian press has always been very aggressive towards me. They have tried to create a problem between me and my brother Seun. They have written that Fela played the piano and trumpet whereas I can’t. They criticised my musical abilities, which allowed them to ignore my political side.

What was your response to their attacks on your “limited” musical abilities?
I started playing other instruments, which left them less to criticise me about. But my goal was actually to diversify, to express all the musical energy I have inside. Once I’d learned the sax, I wanted to go further. It was a new challenge as well, because learning an instrument is easier when you’re young, which is no longer the case for me [Femi is 46].

Day by Day is scattered with musical and melodic ideas that are far from afro-beat. Why did you add these into the mix?
I’ve already played a lot of traditional afro-beat. I led Fela’s group when he was in prison. I want to go further now, to push the boundaries of this music. The afro-beat that I play reflects all the influences I’ve picked up as I’ve travelled around the world.

Your son plays on the album. Are you transmitting your knowledge, just as you and your brother learned from Fela?
I hope so. But he’ll do what he wants to do. I’m sure he has music inside him. I’m a musician and, like any father, I’ve taught him everything I know. So he plays the saxophone, the piano, the trumpet, percussion. He also understands what is wrong with the world. He already has a political conscience. Maybe he’s learned all this too young, that’s what I’m a bit afraid of. He also needs to be a child (he’s 13 years old). He needs time to grow. My only wish is that he be happy.


 Listen to an extract from Day By Day
Femi Kuti Day By Day (Label Maison / Pias) 2008.
See Femi live in concert on November12th in Paris at the Bataclan, 13th in Lyon at the Transbordeur, 16th in Toulouse at the Bikini, 18th in Dijon at La Vapeur, 19th in Florange at the Passerelle, 21st in Nice at the Théâtre Lino Ventura, and 22nd in Marseille at the Espace Julien.

Patrick  Labesse

Translation : Hugo  Wilcken