Femi Kuti: Afrobeat's Undisputed Heir

Report Femi Kuti: Afrobeat’s Nigerian ingenuity fuels Nollywood’s undisputed heir surge Okechukwu Umelo muscular and over-confident style that t’s 1992. A Nigerian businessman Fela fans had grown to know and love. desperately trying to sell a large shi- pment of blank video cassettes uses Distinct, with a familiar them to produce a cheap local film. hen Femi Kuti was 18 I‘Living in Bondage’, the story of a man fervour years old, his father, afro- haunted by his deceased wife’s ghost, beat pioneer Fela Kuti, Femi ended up leading the band for the becomes an instant hit, selling more gave him the opportunity next two years but broke away to form than half a million copies. Nollywood Wto perform a solo. The Nigerian musi- is born. his own group, ‘Positive Force’, upon his cian had been playing with his father’s father’s return in 1986. A major turning band since he was 16, so was no stran- point in Femi’s life was in 1997, when Nigeria’s film industry is the world’s ger to concerts. Today, Femi, now 49, his father died of complications from second largest in terms of the number inspires other types of shaking. His AIDS. Since that day, Femi has been the of films produced annually, surpas- music enthrals listeners with its uni- foremost standard bearer of afrobeat, sing Hollywood and hot on the heels of versal appeal, thanks to funky melodies, bringing it to new audiences. Bollywood. It is also one of the largest conscious lyrics and highly danceable employers in Nigeria. With an average rhythms. Comparisons to Fela are inevitable. shoestring budget of US$20,000 each, Like his father, he is a dynamic multi- around 200 films are digitally produced Born in London and raised in Lagos, instrumentalist and exuberant perfor- every month, mostly for the home video Nigeria, Femi quit school in 1978 to mer but with his own distinct afrobeat market where they sell for less than two play alto saxophone in his father’s sound. Like his father, his lyrics are dollars apiece. This cuts production band. This was the heyday of Fela fuelled with socially conscious, anti- costs, produces healthy profits and ensu- and the genre he created – afrobeat. establishment fervour, albeit less res that the African masses – many of Femi essentially launched his career in controversially. Songs such as ‘Sorry whom cannot afford to go to the cinema 1985, when he was forced to front Fela’s sorry’, ‘Truth don die’ and ‘Day by or reach one easily – can purchase a 40-piece band, ‘Egypt ‘80’, during a Day’ lambast corruption, shed light on copy. To ensure their global appeal, most performance at the Hollywood Bowl rampant poverty and other social ills heavily marketed Nollywood films are in in the United States. His father had and call on the African masses to strive English, with plots that Africans world- been arrested. Femi stepped up that for change and never forget their past. wide can truly relate to. night, wowing the packed crowd by blowing his saxophone in that rude, Fela would be proud. Annual industry revenues are between US$250-500 million a year, in spite of trying conditions, rampant piracy, scarce resources and criticisms of poor quality. What’s more, Nollywood’s suc- cess has helped inspire the rise of other African film industries, such as Ghana’s ‘Ghallywood’. While the industry continues to call for increased government and foreign investment, new funding sources are becoming available, and producers are increasingly choosing enhanced quality and industry training over quantity. The Oscars are not far away. O.U Before his concert in Belgium, October 2008 © Marie-Martine Buckens The 52 C urier.

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