Album review

Seun Kuti, the prince of Afrobeat

From Africa With Fury: Rise

Paris 

21/04/2011 - 

Afrobeat conquered America, Europe and even Japan forty years after its creation. In Nigeria, Afrobeat’s birthplace, it lives on through Seun Kuti, a worthy successor to his father, Fela Kuti. Seun Kuti has recently released a second album From Africa With Fury: Rise.

Seun Kuti has “Fela Lives” tattooed on his back in Gothic letters, a slogan in Lagos that’s mainly found on stickers and T-shirts, like many other symbols of resistance. However, on Seun Kuti’s skin,  Fela’s youngest son and the splitting image of his father, the words are full of promise.

In his second album, From Africa With Fury: Rise, the young Seun Kuti (28) fronts Egypt 80, his father’s original backing band, and like his father, Seun is also called Anikulapo, meaning "he who carries death in his pouch". It’s clear that Seun is sustained by the legendary Fela and his circle.

The album’s sleeve design is by Lémi Ghariokwu, who also designed Fela’s albums. In songs a lot shorter than Fela’s, but longer than those of most modern albums – a sacrifice made at the time – Egypt 80’s musicians give Seun a concentrated version of his legendary aptitude for trance.

Female chorus singers with fabulous make-up imbue their sensual choir with hypnotic rhythms. And where is Seun in all of this? He composed almost all of the album’s songs: at times directly inspired by his father’s legend he reprises his father’s voice, yet succeeds in recreating it for his own generation.

Of course, Afrobeat is not at all stuffy, and Seun’s music is definitely that of a 28-year-old musician living in 2011, who uses funk and even some electronica daringly. Above all Seun Kuti is a stage artist: millions of people danced live to his songs before they were recorded, so that his music remains invigorated with their energy.

Nigeria’s day-to-day situation hasn’t improved much in forty years, and Afrobeat lyrics are still subversive tools of denunciation. In his father Fela’s tradition, and his oldest brother Femi, Seun Anikulapo uses his saxaphone and microphone to decry the abuse of power, the army, politics and economics. Seun has indeed taken up his father’s mantle.

Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 From Africa With Fury: Rise (Knitting Factory Records/Because) 2011

Eglantine  Chabasseur