Alex Duval Smith in Lagos
Never mind the military regime’s promises of free elections. Never mind the international community’s endorsement. What 100-million Nigerians want to know is: what would Fela Kuti have said?
The hard-living, outspoken inventor of afrobeat, who died last year and would have been 60 this Thursday, left behind both a musical and a political void. Gone is the pidgin-speaking critic of white brainwashing (“them come teach us to carry shit”); military rule (“them don butt my head with dem gun”); and growing pauperisation (“poor man still dey plenty more”).
Olakunle Tejuoso, who has his own label, Ede Gidi (“the right language”), and runs a music shop, says: “Musically, we are in a vacuum and, socially, our problems are deeper than politics. We need to cleanse our society.”
In his 30-year career, Fela Anikulapo- Kuti, who died from the effects of Aids in August last year, took jazz back to its African roots by creating afrobeat. By his lifestyle – he was a cannabis chain-smoker who one day in 1978 married his entire troupe of 27 erotic dancers – he provided a counterbalance to the harshness of military rule.
His uncompromising lyrics never allowed Nigerians to forget the fundamental un- Africanness of greed in business and rule by the gun. Fela, who was somewhat suspicious of “democrazy”, made 356 court appearances in 25 years.
“There will only be one Fela,” said Ben Murray-Bruce, who owns Rhythm FM, a Lagos radio station. “Fela was an intellectual – his father was an Anglican priest and he studied at Trinity College, London. There is no one with his ideological base. Nor is there anyone who will put up with the beatings,” he said.
Both Tejuoso and Murray-Bruce despair at the lack of musical risks after Fela. Yet judging from the tape salesmen on the streets and the cassette decks stuck on “play”, Lagos loves its sakara, abala, ewi, fuji, juju, highlife, afrobeat and soukous – genres which dominate in the southwest.
The new talents, they say, such as Lgbj and Fela’s son, Femi Kuti, face enormous hurdles. Lgbj – which means “someone” in Yoruba – has developed the successful and already-copied gimmick of wearing a mask. His saxophone-based afrobeat does not please Fela purists but he is sensationally successful.
Murray-Bruce said: “The Nigerian music industry should be a huge business but there is nothing – no good studios, no managers, no foreign records companies, no record shops, no distributors, no royalties, no copyright.
“The artists have to be great at marketing. Long before they can be rich, they have to be famous. They have to get their music sold and played, for which they get nothing.
“Only once they are famous can they get gigs from which they can actually make money. We need to enforce our copyright law but government ministers do not even understand the concept,” he said.
Femi Kuti – the only Nigeria-resident artist with a record company contract, with PolyGram-France – faces problems of a different kind. Tejuoso said: “Femi is an explosive talent but he needs a songwriter. More broadly, his problem is that he is under enormous pressure to sound like he is Fela’s son. He is resisting well.”
Femi, 32, is this week releasing a poppy new single, Bang, Bang, Bang which is very different from his father’s output. Femi’s lifestyle could not be more opposed to his father’s.
Murray-Bruce said: “Femi does not smoke or drink, advocates safe sex, is married to one wife and is apparently faithful, shows up on time, delivers. Those are not bad messages.”