couleur café ¦ seun kuti’s political afrobeat versus ghostpoet’s urban rhymes
EN Seun Kuti has followed
his blistering 2008 Afrobeat debut, Many Things, with another powerful album, From Africa with Fury: Rise. As the Couleur Café audience will see, he has the same political passion as his father. “Most African presidents have a military past. It’s time for them to go!” Benjamin Tollet
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© Kelechi Amadiobi
‘it’s about time we gave change a chance’
Seun Kuti, youngest son of the great Fela Kuti, founder of Afro-beat, joined his father’s band Egypt 80 when he was nine. After Fela’s death in 1997, he stepped up, leading the band as vocalist and saxophonist. Since releasing his fantastic debut album in 2008, he has toured throughout Europe, developing a charisma and stage presence Fela would be proud of. Now 28, he is “musically more mature, while the message is even more powerful,” he told us by phone. “I feel the maturity of life and my experience has made me more confident.” What is rising with fury? Seun Kuti: The youth. I want to capture the feelings of young people in Africa today. Most of the songs were written before all the uprisings in North Africa, but I could already feel their frustration bob up. African youth is fed up with the lack of opportunities. We want freedom, true freedom, not like it has been for the past 50 years. How do you go about writing new music? Kuti: I’ve been writing new songs for a while. Most have already been performed onstage. Commercial music for the radio is first recorded in the studio, then taken to the stage. Afrobeat goes from the stage to the studio. If you make music that has to do with the world, you have to make it and play it in the world. You can’t talk about what’s going on if you shut yourself up in a studio. “African Soldiers” is about the military. Should they all shed their uniforms? Kuti: Today’s democratic presidents in