Seun Kuti, the pride of African music and the shadow of his legendary father

For Seun Kuti (Lagos, Nigeria, 39 years old), the youngest son of Fela Kuti, a seminal musician of the 20th century, the most powerful weapon Africa has is its culture.

And not precisely that form of culture that accompanies Western power and gives it soundtrack and support, but culture understood as the language of people in their day-to-day life, when they celebrate that, despite everything, they are alive.

“

” (Power to the people) were in fact the first words Kuti uttered when he appeared on the stage of a Madrid theater one rainy November night, strapped to his saxophone and dressed in a suit made from picturesque wax fabrics.

Along with him, in addition to two dancers and singers, one of them his wife, a band of excellent musicians, Egypt 80, some of whom were already playing with his father in the seventies.

More information

Fela Kuti: hero or monster?

With that unique sound that Fela Kuti, who died in 1997, forged together with drummer Tony Allen, mixing what he learned in music schools in London, with the most dynamic jazz and the traditional sounds of Ghana and Nigeria (from

to polyrhythm), fusing music and politics, the Madrid evening was filled with dense and colorful sounds, with a message of fierce struggle without bitterness.

The audience, mostly white, responded enthusiastically to verses such as "The black trip is a mystery" or "Many lies from the IMF."

Is

a genre aimed at the West to raise awareness of the inequality and oppression that came after colonialism?

“The message that you receive is the same that Africans feel, because many are unable to see the true solution to our problems by being immersed in the environment of the elites.

In Africa, there are no media or governments that explain things from the perspective of the people.

Therefore, my message is not only for people who do not know, it is also for those who do not see what is happening.

We have to organize ourselves better, but from our African identity, without imitating the European one.

That would be the real progress”, Kuti opined in a hotel room hours before the Madrid concert, lying on a sofa that little by little and as the conversation progressed would engulf him.

“It's like climate change, holding individuals accountable.

Politicians and institutions want a development for Africa that imitates the European one.

It's wrong.

The new generations are beginning to see that we need something new to move us away from consumerism.

The only way to succeed in Africa is to educate our people with our own educational program, shaping our own way of developing,” she explains.

The musician Seun Kuti, in another promotional image. Alexis Mayron

With the curtains drawn and

the mental clarity with which Kuti expresses himself can only come from the firmness of some immovable values ​​that he has inherited from a family name that has spent 40 years fighting against injustices in a country with significant reserves of gold, tin , oil and coal, where the profits made by multinationals matter more than the well-being of Nigerians.

When asked if it is legal to consume drugs in Nigeria, he answers that it is not, that nothing is legal there, “not even living”.

And although he says it with a certain humor, the truth is that the country continues to have high rates of death from hunger and epidemics.

Kuti, grandson, son and brother of convinced socialists - his grandmother was the first black woman to visit China, during the rule of Mao Zedong -, explains how his last name is above all a responsibility.

“My brother Femi [also a musician] has been like a father to me, because he is 20 years older than me.

The advice that the elders give to the younger ones in my family speaks of responsibility and benevolence.

From the outside we look like a mysterious family, because my father was a mystical figure.

I am turning 40 in January and I lead a perfectly normal life, making music, reading and taking care of my daughter.

Far away are the wild experiences of a young man, ”he admits without wanting to go deeper.

"You'll read my biography," he adds.

Necklaces around the neck, the right hand with the nails painted black and several rings that he will remove later to play (“I am not wearing jewelry, these cost between one and two euros. I do not understand how Kamasi Washington manages to play the saxophone with his hands full of rings"), Kuti is especially enthusiastic when talking about

, a powerful song about the African diaspora and foreign exploitation that gives title to a new album, which contains remixes of three of the most powerful songs from his album of 2018,

Grammy nominated, and where he collaborates with Black Thought, from The Roots.

Three songs that offer the sharpest and forceful side of a musician who has always shown curiosity to evolve, as with his collaboration with Brian Eno in 2011. “For me, hip hop is not that far from

Hip hop is Africans in America making music and I am an African in Africa making music.

That's the only difference,” he says.

In a country with famine, murder and corruption, the revolution often falls on music, although with the hope of elections just around the corner, in February 2023. “Democracy in African countries is young.

I think that in these elections we are going to see more presence of the interests of the people and not only of the elites, because we are developing a class consciousness, ”she reflects.

He says he doesn't feel close to the Black Lives Matter movement, nor to the [anti-Semitic] views of Kanye West.

“Oh, Jesus!” he says spontaneously upon hearing his name.

“Black Lives Matter is an integration technique to call for African liberation.

It's not the technique I would use, but at the same time there is nothing wrong with people expressing themselves that way: asking the oppressor to behave better.

I do not believe that the oppressor can become better, but there are people who do.

Kanye West cannot expect an organization like Black Lives Matter to not function like any other organization and raise money.

But what doesn't make sense is for African people to repeat anti-Semitic claims made by white supremacist Nazis.

It's not our business.

Also, the fault of the oppression is not the Jews, but capitalism, and fascism arises every time the system is about to collapse.

The idea is to leave the conversation with good news… or not so much: Nigeria already has some of the 13th-century Benin Bronzes, statues looted by Germany during colonial times and just returned.

At that moment, Kuti's eyes snap open, half-open for 40 minutes of conversation, barely visible in the dimness of the room.

“They were stolen and they return them.

Do we also have to say thank you?

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