I believe it is still appropriate
what I wrote about FEMI the same year FELA died (1997)… fifteen years ago!
Happy birthday, Femi….welcome to the elders’ council.
Femi has the music, the energy, the
resilience and exposure FELA was secretly proud of. For at similar age (27)
when Femi became a band leader, FELA turned tail when he confronted the biggest
challenge in his fledgling career - Geraldo Pino (I saw the former
Sierra-Leonean star at FELA's graveside). When Pino was on centre-stage, the
world revolved around him and his pompous pop music: FELA was stifled,
disenchanted and frustrated. He had to run to Ghana!
However, when FELA was in his full glory,
several times more illustrious and magnificent than Pino, the strapping young
fella, Femi Kuti began his solo career in 1986 - the year of the great Teacher, Don't Teach Me Nonsense. Yet,
the young man struggled through the maze of FELA's greatness: disadvantaged by
his greatest advantage - being genetically linked to FELA.
He made the most vital, dangerous decision to
plant a distinct tree in the garden of Afrobeat, whose swashbuckling owner was
alive and flourishing.
Femi wobbled with No Cause For Alarm (1989); sulked with Mind Your Own Business (1991) and matured with Plenty Nonsense (1995). His naive insistence and wishful desire to
sound and act different from FELA produced harried fast-tempo music with
messages cascading in staccato exuberance. Of course, the ideological and
compositional depth was suspect, if not gallantly submissive.
Mercifully, his music later took up some
character, depth and focus with Plenty
Nonsense - even the tempo of his music simmers into the fringes of
profundity. It is obvious that Femi Kuti is on a sure path - 20 years after
FELA gave him gifts of piano and sax….
Of course, Plenty Nonsense is perhaps too
meagre to represent the yardstick with which to judge Femi. It is also
gladdening that in spite of the presence of Fela, an album of such promise and
velocity as Plenty Nonsense was produced by Femi.
Now, with the death of FELA, old flakes that
had been lost to the subconscious will now escape, catapulting him into sublime
height. With Why, Plenty Non-sense,
Frustration of a Young Man, Stubborn Problems, etc; Femi has only scratched
the surface; and until he realises that what he is running away from, will be
the cornerstone of his greatness, he will continue to pant after European tours
just to survive.
Until he realises that an improvement on Wonder Wonder is to bury himself in
FELA's apotheosis; to envelop himself with the huge regalia of Fela's mighty
masquerade paraphernalia… until unashamedly and with serious attention to his
inner will, he soaks up the aura and airs of FELA, reinvesting the music with
his own embroidery and energy… re-ascertaining the puritan essence of FELA's
ideology; and maintaining an unshaken belief in his own roots and talent… until
he assumes all these responsibilities, and stamps his manhood and sensibilities
on the offensive depression and oppression surrounding him…until then, he will
be a non-event, a mirage, a short dream. And Afrobeat, a fad, a glow light
dimmed by death and forsaken by posterity. Time, the master, will alert us…:
(Adapted
from ‘’Footprints’’ by Femi Akintunde-Johnson)
Today,
I submit….that in spite of great swathes yet to conquer in the wilderness of
Afrobeat, Olufemi Olufela Anikulapo Kuti has erected an unshakable ‘’iroko’’’
in the hearts of Afrobeat fans and acolytes…that no forester, no scavenger, no
trespasser can saunter around wondering: ‘’Whose father owns this tree?’’
Thunder
will strike him or her…ararararaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
