In 2024, you opened Glastonbury’s main stage and also later performed your 2019 collaboration with Coldplay, ‘Arabesque’, during their headline set. Can you name any act who performed in between?
“Arrrggh, gosh! OK – skip! [Laughs]”
WRONG. Ayra Starr, Cyndi Lauper, Keane, Michael Kiwanuka and Little Simz. 2024 also marked the 40th anniversary of the first time you played Glasto as part of your father, Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti’s band, Egypt 80.
“I knew Little Simz! She appeared with Coldplay too. I remember being onstage with my father the first time in 1984. I was dead high! I’d smoked a couple of joints.”
Glastonbury must have been a breeze compared to your early tours with Fela, including one of Nigeria in 1979 which has been dubbed ‘history’s most dangerous tour’…
“That was scary! Up north, they weren’t ready to see my father’s dancers in their costumes because of the religion there. The worst moment was when the fanatics stormed into a venue, and security had to chase them out. We managed perform that night, but we were supposed to have another gig the next day, and they arrived with bows and arrows and dangerous weapons, and lined the streets, waiting for us. We got wind of it and left for the next venue – they were waiting there as well, so we headed down south quickly.”
Kendrick Lamar’s track ‘Mortal Man’ from 2015’s ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’ samples a cover of which of your dad’s songs?
“Since 2000, I stopped listening to anything because I wanted my music to be pure and uninfluenced by anybody, so I’ve bypassed all samples!”
WRONG. ‘Mortal Man’ samples a 1977 Houston Person cover of Fela Kuti’s 1975 track ‘I No Get Eye for Back’. So many musicians, from Beyoncé to Vampire Weekend, have been inspired by your family legacy. Any stood out to you?
“I appreciate that they respect my father and that he’s still important to the music scene, but I’m influenced by Miles Davis who cut off from listening to music because he wanted to be original.
“Also, the pressure of being Fela’s son and told, ‘You’ll never make it in music’ meant my career has been a turbulent, troublesome path, so I’ve self-centredly focused on being at the top of my game. So, I won’t be able to answer any of your questions!” [Laughs]
For what reason was your 1999 song ‘Beng Beng Beng’ banned by the Nigerian military government?
“They said it was because it was sexual.”
CORRECT.
“But that was a lie. It’s because the rest of the album, ‘Shoki Shoki’, was political and they didn’t want radio stations playing it, so banning ‘Beng Beng Beng’ in Nigeria killed the album entirely. I mean, they were playing Salt-N-Pepa’s ‘Let’s Talk About Sex’. Can you imagine the hypocrisy?”
Which song did you cover on the 2002 AIDS* benefit album ‘Red Hot + Riot: The Music and Spirit of Fela Kuti’?
“’Water No Get Enemy’.”
CORRECT. Alongside D’Angelo, Macy Gray and the Soultronics featuring Nile Rodgers and Roy Hargrove.
“That was recoded on the night of the MTV Awards. D’Angelo and I were working together, and everyone heard, so they came from the awards to the studio and it was a big party. Name a hip-hop artist – they were there!”
When you were growing up, Fela and his band Africa 70 hosted all-night jam sessions at The Shrine, his Lagos nightclub, which was visited by the biggest stars including Paul McCartney. Anyone turn up that blew your mind?
“I always knew my father’s music was special. We were teenagers listening to James Brown and Michael Jackson, but my father’s music seemed more unique and the sound of the future. My friends would say, ‘You’re only saying that because he’s your father’. But when I read Miles Davis’ [1989] autobiography and he named Fela as one of three artists representing the future of music, I took the book to my father and said, ‘See? This is what I’m saying!’. Miles Davis was a great influence on my father, so to read that he had been influenced by my father completely blew me away.
“After James Brown’s bassist came to The Shrine in 1977, he left and told James Brown: ‘We’ve found a band better than us!’. James Brown was very angry – and his band noticed he was trying to copy Fela in his later compositions. When I found this out, it convinced me my thoughts as a young boy were right.”
What was The Shrine like? It’s been compared to the bacchanalia of famed New York club Studio 54…
“It moved many times, but everyone came, including Stevie Wonder and Ginger Baker. We were very young, but every few months, our mother would let us go on Friday or Saturday nights, so we didn’t miss school, because it went on from 10pm to 5am.
“Kalakuta [Fela’s family home and artistic compound] was one big party. Nobody slept. It was a crazy place. I failed my exams because of Kalakuta! It was ‘music, dance, play, smoke’. I was the only student that came back whose father said, ‘Well done for failing!’. All my friends who failed got beaten, but my father was proud of my Fs!” [Laughs]
Did your upbringing feel unconventional compared to your mates? Fela had multiple wives with a rota system in place…
“Yes. Fela was also very political, so in school, a lot of people didn’t like me. I was always in fights. The teachers considered Fela a threat to the establishment and took that out on me. I used to drive my father’s car to school – aged 12! – which probably made everybody more envious, so they hated me more, but I was just having fun. Fela’s friends used to give me money, so I would buy lunch for the whole class – they ate it, but they still hated me. My early life became a blueprint in how I wouldn’t raise my own children. There was no way my kids were going to drive a car aged 12!”
*Fela passed away from AIDS-related complications in 1997.
Which Grand Theft Auto IV radio station do you host?
“WHY?! I think you hate me! Was it IF99 – International Funk?”
CORRECT.
[Laughs] “All of my children played it and would say, ‘Daddy, you’re here!’. I thought they were crazy to enjoy that game. They’d drive the cars, killing everyone on the streets, and I couldn’t understand the appeal!”
What is track five on your latest album ‘Journey Through Life’?
“ENOUGH OF THESE QUESTIONS, PLEASE! [Laughs] I don’t even know what track one is! You’re giving me homework to do. I’m going to have to study for this! I could look at the album in front of me, but I hate cheats.”
WRONG. ‘Politics Don Expose Them’.
“That was one of the singles. Why didn’t you ask me ‘What was your first single?’ or even the title of my album? I’d know that! [Laughs]
“The inspiration for this album was my daughter going into an operation. Instead of feeling worried, I used that energy to write new songs. Although it’s still important for me to be political, I wanted listeners to have a more intimate understanding of what brought me to where I am today. A track like ‘Work on Myself’, for instance, is about feeling helpless at the chaos of the world. Riots and protests aren’t changing the political direction, so I thought the mistake we’re making is trying to change the world instead of changing ourselves.
“I’m 62 now; why not work on making myself a better person, and the immediate things around me, rather than trying to change the impossible? The idea was to let people understand from where I started and my journey through life to where I am today.”
Whenever Fela released music, he had to contend with being jailed, beaten or worse; in retribution to his 1977 album ‘Zombie’ – which criticised the Nigerian military – 1,000 soldiers descended upon Kalakuta Republic and threw your grandmother from a window to her death. Did that give you a different perspective on releasing albums?
“Yes. Everything I put out, I have to be able to defend it with my life, so that if anything happens, I have no regrets. Every political song I released, I was ready for the backlash. This was the training I had in my father’s house.
“My children say: ‘Dad, you are a traumatised man'”
“For a good decade, whenever I heard sirens, I thought the police were coming to beat us again. Even though they couldn’t erase the music and fun of Kalakuta, it was real terror. Thinking back, I wonder how we went through all that. My children say: ‘Dad, you are a traumatised man. Do you know what you went through in your life? It’s not normal.’ I’ve been blessed that I turned out like this, and I try not to think about it too deeply or else I’ll feel like crying.”
Name the three guest stars on your 2001 album ‘Fight to Win’.
“Common, Jaguar Wright and Mos Def.”
CORRECT.
[Laughs] “Those are the questions you should be asking me! At this time, my career was breaking in America, and the hip-hop world was big, so that album built a bridge.”
Who curated the 2016 Meltdown Festival that you performed at?
[Sings] “I DO NOT KNOOOOOOOOOWWWW!”
Melodic, but WRONG. Elbow’s Guy Garvey.
“THIS IS A DISASTER! You are a bad teacher! Usually, people get time to study for tests, but this is not how to do an exam! You’re just telling me to get to class, take out my paper and pen and expect me to get them right! I’m calling my lawyers!” [Laughs]
In 2018, you broke the (unofficial) record for the longest single note held on a sax. How long did it last for?
“51 minutes, 38 seconds.”
CORRECT. Call off the lawyers!
“I used the technique of circular breathing to achieve it. My arm and thumb were so sore, I will never try that again! I was determined to break that record because people said I couldn’t do it. Whenever I’m doubted, something triggers in my soul to say ‘OK, I’m going to prove you wrong!’
“That drive probably comes from my father. In 1989, at the launch of my first album, he went onstage in front of the press and said I played rubbish. It angered me. He didn’t teach me music, he didn’t even let me go to school, and then he had the audacity to get onstage and condemn me. I was upset. Later, his favourite track of mine was ‘Mind Your Own Business’ and when I played at The Shrine, he came to watch; probably with an attitude of, ‘OK, how is he going to play?’ Then he got up dancing, and we made up and started to have fun again. But what my father said back then is still in the back of my head and keeps me going and proving people wrong.”
What rating out of five did NME award ‘Shoki Shoki’?
“Five stars?”
WRONG. Close – four.
“’Shoki Shoki’ was the album that acted as the blueprint for a lot of Afrobeats of today. Everybody thought my father’s music couldn’t be enhanced with technology. When I said I wanted the direction to be using technology to enhance the music, I was asked, ‘Are you sure? Your father wouldn’t agree!’. I replied: ‘This is my not my father – it’s me right now, so let’s go all out.’
“I don’t like the album as much now as then, because I’m always moving forward, but back then, it was exciting madness. Then, the next album ‘Fight to Win’, was a bad time in my life. The papers were falsely claiming I’d gone mad and was in the asylum. Maybe I had to go through that for all those great albums that followed. They’re all like special children to me.”
The verdict: 5/10
“I thought I’d failed woefully! But you didn’t give me exam notes to study! Now you’ve given me work to do! Arrragggghh!”
Femi Kuti’s ‘Journey Through Life’ is available now.