Photo of Seun Kuti by Kola Oshalusi
“Knowledge is power – music is the weapon.”
We heard this phrase early in the set. “Music is the weapon of the future” is a quote from the Nigerian Afrobeat pioneer and legendary political activist Fela Aníkúlápó Kútì. It is also the title of the incredible 1982 documentary about Fela’s life, primarily told through interview and concert footage. It lives on as a mantra of Fela’s son, Oluseun Anikulapo Kuti, a.k.a. Seun Kuti, as does Fela’s spirit in the music and performance of Seun Kuti & Egypt 80. On a Tuesday night at the City Winery, the tables were filled with bobbing heads and a whole lot of chair-dancing to thoughts of love and revolution and people over profit.
The Egypt 80 band is an international blend of musicians: a few from Paris, France and a few from Lagos, Nigeria. The baritone saxophonist, hailing from Martinique, West Indies, led the band to open the set before Seun appeared onstage, much as Seun used to open the show for Fela & Egypt 80. The band set the tone for the evening with “No Waiting,” a single Seun recorded with the Parisian Afrikanbeat orchestra Les Frères Smith, and engaged the audience with “no waiting” response to their calls of justice, freedom, and other basic human rights.
Once the vibe was established, Seun entered the stage and assumed his position at center mic, a keyboard at his left, dancer and singer Cynthia “Princess” Balogun dressed in vibrant green at his right. Seun’s beaming smile lit up the stage from the moment he appeared in loose-fitting pants and a button-down shirt to the moment he disappeared, shirtless and dripping, behind the final curtain. Even when he was fiercely emphasizing a criticism of capitalism, finger wagging and scowl overtaking his grin, he was still radiant. It’s not just his music and his lyrics that perpetuate the Fela experience, it’s his stage presence in delivering it all. It’s not only in his blood, it was ingrained in his adolescent experience. Seun began performing with his father at just nine years old and assumed the bandleader role as a teenager, after Fela’s death in 1997. And it shows.
“I start all my shows like this, to show respect.”
The opening song with Seun at the helm was our Fela song of the evening. While Seun continues his father’s trademark style of Afrobeat with remarkable fidelity, it resonates with his own contemporary flavor, and something about a Fela song still has the originator’s distinct imprint—the composition is a little looser, jazzier, less structured. The Afrobeat groove both father and son effectively establish is an entrancing vehicle for the stories and observations they both came to share: The pillaging of African countries endowed with the resource curse. The imposition of Colonial rules and values upon established cultures and societies. Corrupt leaders and extractive industries and shaping the politics and the economies of African countries, with the Kuti family’s native Nigeria as a stunning example. Music continues as the weapon because these issues are timeless and persist frustratingly across the centuries, but the resistance to oppressive profit-chasing is thankfully just as resilient. Seun’s performance was an inspiring reminder.
“It’s so dark, we need light”
Seun started out coolly enough, playing saxophone behind a mic stand. Songs like “T.O.P.” from the latest album Heavier Yet (Lays the Crownless Head) engaged most of the band in a pantomime of climbing an endless social ladder. But soon enough, he was stepping, hopping, strutting, and spinning with fury in the narrow channel between the dancer and the drum kit. Fela was legendary for his stage presence; the collection of musicians and dancers and their connection to the audience generated a powerful kinetic energy. Seun summoned his own force of nature in playing songs from Heavier Yet, decrying the acquisitive class found at home and abroad. “I meet the poor and they so rich / I meet the rich and they so poor / All they want is more more more,” goes the timeless message he sang from the album’s final track “Move.” Jogging in place, arms flying, saxophone strap bouncing and flashing in the light just like his father’s, just like his other performing brother, Femi Kuti—the cardio workout that is Seun’s stage presence was both exhausting and exhilarating to watch. Meanwhile, at his side, Balogun shifted and swished, shimmied and flickered with the rhythm section, sometimes twirling, oftentimes back to the crowd, sending green fringe bouncing in time with every move.
“You are here because of me? No, I am here because of you.”
Seun Kuti told us he waits until five or so songs into the set before he thanks his audience. Too many times, he says, he thanked the crowd at the beginning of the show, prematurely, then watched as people slowly exited the room. It was hard to imagine this in his current era. Straight off a fiery performance on a Coachella stage, it’s an apt moment for Seun Kuti’s message to find a larger American audience. His voice transformed into something larger, deeper, and grittier to plead: “Tell your politicians / I don’t like your nonsense / I don’t prostitute my conscience / Save me from the users / Humanity abusers / Save me from these rich men.” It was just the tonic we needed for robber baron times, reminding us that these patterns are well-trod and may feel eternal, but just as persistent is the resistance to exploitation and abuses of power.
For all the gravity of his subject matter, Seun Kuti still emanated charm and warmth. While recharging between songs, he chatted casually about considering becoming a minister for a minute, because he was tired of being poor (Femi’s father was a minister), and how poverty makes political boycotts much easier, such as his current campaign against Lamborghini. But all roads ultimately lead back to the cause. After he jokingly told us about the exception to his Rolex boycott, because he was gifted a particularly nice model, he earnestly, emphatically, repeated “No diamonds until Congo is free.” And while “Love & Revolution” may have the feel of serenading a lover, its essence is still a righteous love: “My Front line woman / She dey the trenches with the troops empower them troops.” Among her virtues: “She no come for my looks, she come for my books” and “She fierce, Wise beyond her years / She respects the ancestors.”
Seun performed for a captivated audience for a solid 90 minutes, but the conclusion still felt too soon. Many of us lingered hopefully, as the house music came on, unreasonably, as the lights turned up. There was no reason to think it wasn’t over; we just wouldn’t accept it. We were there for the message and the music and the fortitude that comes with it, and we weren’t ready to let it go. But fortune, and Seun’s road crew, smiled upon us. The collection of us mesmerized fans sweating under house lights were invited to the green room to get a hug and a photo with Seun. He took his time to engage with us one-by-one. I had him sign my record, thanked him and the rest of the team for coming to our town, and told him it made my year. I left feeling invigorated and connected to something bigger than myself, bigger than our current political state, and more meaningful than daily news coverage. Knowledge is power, music is the weapon, and Seun Kuti is an accomplished marksman. | Courtney Dowdall
