Femi Kuti

Nigeria's Femi Kuti has broad shoulders. To be the son of the late Fela Kuti, the man who essentially invented Afrobeat, a man as much legend as real, you have to be able to carry a heavy weight. But Kuti, now 38, who got his start playing in his father's band, has fully developed into his own person, with his own music.

You can still see Fela in there, but when you listen to Femi and his band, Positive Force, you hear something that goes beyond Fela's creation, a true global music. Femi Kuti's first album, Femi Kuti, (Tabu/Motown, 1995) went absolutely nowhere in the U.S., but Shoki Shoki (MCA, 2000) catapulted him into the forefront of African artists.

To be fair, he was helped a little by the reissue of much of his father's back catalogue, but the record stands on its own merits, from the sweaty funk of "Beng Beng Beng" to the conscious questioning and advice of "Blackman Know Yourself."

"It's important for mankind to hear what Fela did."

It's a disc that blends influences, from Afrobeat to funk to jazz, into a single, thrilling whole. To be Femi Kuti and Positive force onstage is to realize you're watching a star. From the first moment to the last it's show of non-stop energy, unlike almost anything else around. He's a showman, to be sure, with strong stage presence, but he's also a serious musician whose band can stop and turn on a dime. You walk away utterly convinced by Femi and his music.

It's just a matter of time - and probably sooner rather than later - that Femi Kuti will become an international superstar on the order of Bob Marley. If music were all he had to offer, that would be enough. But, like Marley, and like his father, Kuti is a political animal. He's thought about issues, and about life. He's human, and very spiritual.

Q: Shoki Shoki had a great impact in Europe and America, and made you into a known name. After its release you spent months touring. How prepared were you for what happened?

Kuti: I had great expectations for it, but not that much. Being with my father I know what it's like to be on the road, but when the responsibility is yours, the decisions are yours, and you want to succeed, it's a different ball game. People don't want to know how tired you are - they want the same you, the same energy on that stage. Sometimes it's hard to summon the energy. I'm happy to travel and to make people happy gives me so much comfort in my soul.

Q: Femi Kuti, back in 1995, was a good album. Why didn't that make any impact?

Kuti: There were problems at Motown, but it was massive in Nigeria.

Q: Is it difficult to work, with the legacy of your father always around you?

Kuti: The legacy is part of the good time. I loved my father very much, even when he wasn't a good father. I have some good memories, some sweet memories, some excellent memories, some very disappointing memories. But I think all that is part of life. At the end of the day, he was human. He wanted to be human. I never saw him hate anybody. He was never bad, his heart was full of love.

Q: Were you pleased to see all his albums available again on CD?

Kuti: It was part of my dream. I could never understand why my father's works weren't in the shops like Bob Marley's. He deserved to be treated like any other superstar. He was a legend in his struggle and music. He had so many compositions, and each one was unique. He was a very dedicated hard worker and so I was part of the committee that decided to reissue his albums. So I did everything in my power to release his back catalogue. It's important for mankind to hear what he did. For art, for music, it has to be there in the libraries. Everybody has to listen to it, like Duke Ellington.

Q: A number of the tunes from Shoki Shoki have been released as remixes. How do you feel about that?

Kuti: I worked on them. It's art - you do a painting, and somebody says ‘Wow! Can I do that same painting in a different way?' How can you say no if you don't know where he's coming from. So I was excited when all the deejays wanted to be part of the music. That gave me strength. We had over 15 remixes. You get a different feel. When I got bored of listening to my CD, the remixes were refreshing, and I'll do it again with my next album.

Q: Lyrically, you address some deep and serious issues. Do you think artists have the responsibility to be conscious, to make it part of their life to become involved in that with their audience?

Kuti: Everybody has the responsibility to be conscious about life. The accountant, the banker, the tax collector, everybody. What's the bottom line on life? We're born and we have to die, whether we like it or not. Science can do everything. But if we even find a way to stay here, are we sure we want to stay here? Are we sure wherever we might go to isn't much better? How do we judge when we do not know? So simplicity has to be the motivation behind life, and I can't understand why anyone would not want to take life like that. You want to be greedy, corrupt, you hang on and say ‘Mine!' Then you hear you have cancer and you start to panic. But what you have to understand is that when you appreciate life you can understand death and welcome it. I don't believe death is a bad thing. I can't stop it, why should I give myself stress about it. When am I going to die? I don't know that. So every minute of my life I've decided to have a good time. And every minute of my life I've decided to make people happy. So when I die, when that time comes, I want to be smiling. If death is a spirit that says, ‘Hey, I've come to take you!' I can say ‘I'm ready to go.' I want to be strong, and you become strong by being happy and making people happy. Being strong isn't about good or bad. It's about equilibrium, the middle of that, neither good nor bad.

"If I can find another thing to improve on, I want to. I want to go all out. "

Q: You're one of a number of African musicians who's become involved in AIDS awareness on your continent. While it has very personal reverberations for you (Fela Kuti died of AIDS in 1997), why are artists just getting involved now?

Kuti: Because Africa wasn't aware of the disease for 15 years. Africa is just taking the issue seriously, because we had bad leaders who didn't release the truth about AIDS. Even when information was coming in, Afrcians didn't believe AIDS. In Nigeria, no one believed it until ‘97, and unfortunately there wasn't enough done to make people aware. We never saw AIDS patient. In Nigeria we saw one picture of an AIDS patient. In America you were going all out, there was such a huge campaign about it. Africans saw that and said, ‘What's wrong with these people?' They'd go home and think there was no AIDS [in Africa], or SIDA as it was called, and the whole thing sounded like a game. Until you are really confronted with the disease. Now it's a shocking problem for Africa, and I blame the leaders for that. A lot of artists have become concerned because the profession makes you aware. The artist is supposed to feel, and when you see something wrong, you can't get it off your mind. It falls into your compositions.

Q: Is there a limit to how much artists can do in situations like that?

Kuti: There's no limit. It's like remixes. The same remixes can be remixed and remixed indefinitely. Where's the end? Is there an end? Where's the beginning? Just go. As much as you can do, do. The essence of life is to be stressless, to be at peace with yourself. And that means no limits. I want to become a good saxophonist. I'm not going to say when I can do this or that, I'm a good saxophonist. If I can find another thing to improve on, I want to. I want to go all out.

Q: What's happening with your next album?

Kuti: I hope we'll be finished before the end of November, and the album will be out early in 2001, so we can get an early start on the year. Q: Will it be radically different, or a refinement of the style of Shoki Shoki? Kuti: You'll have to listen to the album. I just hope it's going to be like an atomic bomb, and everyone will go ‘Oh my God, what is this? Afrobeat!' I hope to work with other artists on it. I hope we get interest from remixers. I hope we get airplay this time; it's so hard to get airplay being in an unconventional style. But the world is opening to new ideas and people are beginning to see that life is about openness. Why shut yourself off?

Q: Your music is very funky, in the American sense. How influential has funk been on you?

Kuti: Very influential. I was four or five and we saw Diana Ross, the Temptations, and all our radio stations were playing funk. I knew my father's music, and then funk. I was lucky to have my father or I'd have playing been playing funk. My father's music brought me back home. He introduced me to jazz, I found salsa, calypso, then traditional music, reggae. So I said what did I want to do. I preferred my father's music, but on my own I could be a child of the world, not restricting myself. I'm not playing funk, but you can see the inspiration it's given me to be myself. Like jazz. I love jazz, but I could not see myself as a jazz musician. I don't want to lead that life. I love my style.

Q: But still your music is classed as world music.

Kuti: That's why I like the term world music. What's music? If you say funk, isn't funk part of the world? So we're all headed in the same direction. Keep an open mind.

Q: You're successful these days. Do you think it will change you?

Kuti: I try not to think about that. That's from my mother - never let success get into your head. I want to remain like I've always been. I want to be simple, I want to reach out to other people, I want them to see me any time. I don't want to restrict myself. I don't want to get star-drunk. I want to have a good time, I want to see smiles everywhere I go. I just want to be happy.

Femi Kuti

"It's important for mankind to hear what Fela did."

"If I can find another thing to improve on, I want to. I want to go all out. "

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