Seyram Avle
1 August 2005
Boston — Agile, humorous and a bit out of this world, Femi Kuti is a wonder to behold on stage. If you are not arrested by his sporadic dancing or intense multi-instrument playing, his dancers will captivate you. His frantic energy, coupled with that of the band Positive Force behind him, only adds to the experience and leaves you wanting more.
But who is the man behind the socio-politically charged blend of African rhythms, jazz and pop? How does Femi reconcile his father's legacy with his own personality and what influences him as a man? In an interview at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston during his recent U.S. tour, Femi sits down with AllAfrica's Seyram Avle and in a simultaneously light-hearted and dead-pan tone, speaks his mind about his life, music and Africa. Excerpts:
Is there a particular concept/message behind this U.S. tour?
Everything - first and foremost is the music and playing the music. The lyrics say what I'm talking about, which is what I see politically, socially, or whatever. Because at the end of the day, it'll hopefully give people energy to be able to deal with their life: went to see a good concert, go home and just be happy, "Whoa, I saw a great show." Hopefully it will stay in their memories, to help them deal.
This tour is also about "Live at the Shrine," your new DVD and CD set - what is different about this project?
This one is live - very different, more energy to it. It is recorded at the Shrine with a live audience, and the people there added more to it.
What's your favorite song on it?
Possibly, "Bring me the man now" - very jazz oriented and African - so many rhythms and simple line but complicated. It's very vicious and...what's this word? I think vicious can work.
I noticed your son plays in your band - is there going to be another father-son legacy?
He's playing and doing very well and it will make me happy if he continues with the music but I will not restrict him. He is very good at football, and he enjoys that, so if that's what he wants to do, I will support him. If he wants to go ahead and play for the country and do other great things, he can do that. He should be what he wants to be and can be. He should reach his potential.
Your music is called "World" for the most part, but what do you personally classify it? I like the "World," I like it. If it's world music that means it's acceptable to the world. Now if you call reggae, reggae is acceptable to only certain forms of people, the reggae fans really. Other people will say they prefer pop or classical. You see when it's world music, it crosses many boundaries, so I don't mind. When they started the world music scene, some were like "I don't like world music." I don't know why people like complaining. Look at the other side, what's wrong with world music? Are we not in the world? If they said alien music now that would be problematic!
Which musicians are your inspirations?
Now, no one. I just let the music come and when it does I write it. In the past, my father... and of course his style was very influential when I was with him and growing up. I also used to listen also to the jazz musicians in the seventies like Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie etc.
You were in Kenya recently, touring Africa, how was that? How difficult or easy was it? The joys, the ups and downs?
There's no joy - the only joy is trying to mobilize things to be stronger. It's too painful seeing the whole world and then seeing Africa - it's not too impressive. And then when you think of the future, seeing all these youths coming out with so much energy and then there's nowhere for them to generate this energy to. They turn to crime or they just make a nuisance of their lives because their parents, and the government and society have not, in the past, provided the amenities for them to channel this energy. Even here wherein the youth can channel their energy, they have a lot of complications. Now in a society [where] there is nowhere for the youth to channel their energy, chaos [rules]. And then the elders don't realize that they are getting old so it is them and their children they are putting in danger. Africa is heading very fast in that direction, and that is not amusing.
The Live 8 concerts just ended, and in one interview you were critical about their lack of Africa perspective...
I was not critical. To be critical means they were doing something wrong. There's nothing wrong about what they were doing. I just said I have nothing to do with it. If they are having concert somewhere and I'm not part of it, why should I be critical? People call me in my house, "Why aren't you there? Do this or that..." Why should I? Until this day everybody keeps asking me. I was not critical. They asked my opinion and I gave it - which is not critical. I said I don't know the organizers, the agenda of the organizers. The organizers are talking about Africa, to tell his other colleagues or the other people. They already hear a lot of it on their news so if they need a concert to make themselves aware, good for them. But nobody can educate me on the suffering on Africa where I live, I stay, I sleep and wake. I've been there for 43 years. You want to educate me on the leaders or to tell me that I have no light and you have light.
If you want to educate your people, please feel free to educate them. Please you're most welcome if you can get the whole of Europe and America to understand the plight of the African man. Please do it quickly. Because every second that passes, we should remember one child is dying. As we're talking the war is still on in Rwanda. Is it Somalia, is it Rwanda or Cote d'Ivoire or Liberia, or name the country for me? If they can end the problem immediately, please they're most welcome. If Jesus arrives today, who won't be happy? We'll all be happy.
Your music speaks a lot about Black people and Africa. What particular song would you say speaks your message most - for Africans to be aware of themselves and realize that there is a lot of potential within Africa?
"Blackman Know Yourself" would probably the one. It's very direct, not too political and its just straightforward that you have to know yourself, be proud of your heritage. Black people are not aware and its because of the kind of education we have had over the years. We're not aware of the gravity of what our forefathers and our mothers and brothers and sisters went through at the time of the slave trade. Now if we could visualize in our minds, five hundred years of slave trade, to do that you just have to look at Hitler and the Jews, the Second World War. People are sympathetic towards that because there is footage on it. There is no footage on the slave trade. There is no amount of acting we will act to show the extent or the gravity or the pains Africans went through during the slave trade. We can only just say and speculate and anybody can say, yes you sold yourselves, and then we blame ourselves.
We have been fighting over 200 years, blaming ourselves for the slave trade. If indeed some of us were bad, what about the hundreds of thousands of us that were good? What about the others, families that until today don't know? Can you imagine the people, families who were lost, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives? You have to marry another wife, because you're separated. You cannot imagine. Heritages were lost, people cannot trace their backgrounds anymore. Maybe one, two generations, and if the slave trade did not happen, imagine the stories we'd have as adults and children today, telling our children. If we can appreciate that, that's already a big step as Africans, to appreciate what we went through in the past. When we cannot relate to the past, there's no way we'd ever be able to appreciate the present. Because no matter what, whatever we are today, it is the past has brought us to this point in our lives. Now if we keep blaming our forefathers or the past, we'll not be here. So we should understand the pain of that slave trade, that 500 years, that's about six or seven generations of Africans that were enslaved and we're still enslaved.
And another one - we don't think in our languages. We should be thinking in our languages. How many of us can think in our languages? So we dream in English. It's like the computer, you take the chip and put it in another language that's speaking Chinese to you, you will not understand. To even understand ourselves and communicate as Africans is always a fight because of the colonial era. When we appreciate that, already that's a very big step. Then many things will just come to your being. You will even be able to deal with your present day life. You will be able to see things for what they truly are. What we are now today is we are groomed to be gullible to what the film or news tells us, which is not the reality of the day-to-day basic life of the average human being.
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