Fanning The Fires of Freedom: Femi Kuti and The Positive Force.
By Dean “Lighting The Farts of Mediocrity” Bonzani
7.17.05
Femi Anikulapo Kuti has extremely large shoes to fill.
Femi’s father, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, founded the genre known today as Afrobeat, with its signature blending of traditional African rhythms, highlife, jazz, soul, R & B, funk, and straight-from-the-James-Brown-playbook horn stabs. Known by monikers like “The President,” Fela Kuti was hailed as a prophet and adored by his fellow Nigerians and fans across the globe until his death from AIDS in 1997— an event that, along with the death of his younger sister, Sola, to cancer that same year, Femi eulogizes in his song, “’97.” (The middle name Anikulapo, that Fela took on and passed along to his son means "having control over death" or “he who carries death in his pouch” in the local Yoruba language.)
It is not an exaggeration to say that Fela enjoyed demi-god status in Africa, and though he’d humbly deny such tags, his son, Femi now attracts similar worship as a prophet. In a newly released DVD/CD collection, “Femi Kuti: Live At The Shrine,” devoted fans enthusiastically detail what it is about the 43-year-old singer/composer/bandleader/keyboardist/ soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophonist that instills such reverence in them. Namely, that he fearlessly speaks out against the oppression, corruption, greed and violence of the Nigerian government while simultaneously holding up a vision of African men and women as self-determining, proud, and enduring people in the face of crushing poverty and hardship— backing up his words by employing the street boys of not only his home town of Lagos, but surrounding areas.
In the words of the poor whom Femi has taken under his wing, they have “found survival” with him.
All of this and more is documented in the DVD portion of “Live At The Shrine.” Shot with hand-held cameras, this film by French director Raphael Frydman captures all of the perspiration-soaked intensity of Femi Kuti and Positive Force’s live performances at the converted warehouse in Lagos they’ve dubbed, “The New Africa Shrine,” in a reference to Fela Kuti’s declaring each venue that he played in a temporary shrine. “Live At The Shrine” is packed with riveting performance footage of Femi’s explosive Sunday night “jumps”, which he says are a way to let the frustrated youth of Lagos blow steam. In one memorable scene, immediately after a paternal admonition to the exuberant crowd— “Do NOT throw your beverages!— plastic patio chairs fly over the crowd like Frisbees at a ‘Stones concert, and a hail of liter drink bottles rains on the stage. Like he does throughout the film, Femi displays a saint’s patience throughout.
The CD/DVD release that he and his band are promoting on a whirlwind one-month tour of the U.S. manages to admirably convey a sense of the sheer power that courses through Femi Kuti as he leads his razor-sharp band through tunes like “Dem Bobo,” “I Wanna Be Free,” “Bring Me The Man Now,” and the blistering groove of the call to rise up out of indifference that is “Shotan” (Nigerian street slang for acts of self-destructive anger.) In the concert footage, Femi prowls the stage quivering with raw intensity, lunging and flailing his arms before launching into passionate sax solos, or diving his fingers into huge chordal organ washes.
He doesn’t preach to the audience like his father, whose father and grandfather before him were Protestant ministers did, but relies on the depth of his charged lyrics, that plunge directly into the hearts of the listener, and the anthemic sweep and relentless pulse of his compositions to lift the listener up in a dervish-column of energy, and fill them with messages of dissent, historic relevance, and hope.
No small part of Femi Kuti’s driving presence is attributable to what’s he witnessed and lived through in his life as the son of a musical legend in a land full of danger and suffering. Fela Anikulapo Kuti, who was renowned for a bohemian lifestyle of unprotected promiscuous sex, igbo smoking, and performing in just his skivvies, was a constant thorn in the side of the Nigerian authorities, harshly criticizing them at every turn and at one point going so far as to declare the home that he shared with his many wives, his band members, and his mother, a sovereign state, the “Kalakuta Republic.” According to Femi Kuti’s official biography, on February 22, 1977, when Femi was 16 years old, approximately 1,000 soldiers of the Nigerian Army burned the Kuti home to the ground, and Fela was beaten, hospitalized, and jailed, and his friends and family were brutalized and raped. His 82-year-old mother was thrown from a first story window, dying later of her injuries.
It’s no wonder that Femi has strong and bitter words for corrupt government officials— and little has changed for the poor people of his country since his father’s day, despite the fact that Nigeria is the largest producer of oil in Africa, and the 10 th largest producer in the world. Basic services like electric lighting are scarce in Lagos, unemployment is rampant, police brutality is rife, and the cost of living disproportionately high.
Amidst the chaos and uncertainty, Femi Kuti serves as a beacon and a focal point.
“Live At The Shrine” is especially poignant and intimate because of its setting, centered as it is in the converted warehouse that Femi has turned into something of a community center, not far from where his father’s house stood, in the industrial section of Ikeja. Covering the walls are portraits of pan-Africanist poets, beneath whose gazes sit men and the occasional woman, sipping drinks, smoking and talking, while upstairs from the window of his personal quarters, the sound of Femi Kuti’s saxophone floats hypnotically. Painted on the wall in red letters are “The Ten Ways To A Better Life Our Forefathers Taught Us”:
Frydman’s cameras take us behind the scenes, where we see Femi warming up before hitting the stage, and cooling down between songs outside the club.
Crowds of as many as 2,000 locals jam the Africa Shrine during band rehearsals and during the Sunday “jumps,” where they find a constructive release for their pent-up frustrations, and a source of inspiration. Femi expertly rides and directs the enormous energy of the band and audience, never letting things gets out of hand, unlike his father, who once inspired a massive riot in Ghana and was banned from that country.
Femi got his first big break in 1985 when, as a member of Fela’s band, “Egypt ’80,” he had to step in for Fela, who had been arrested at the airport just as the band was leaving for a tour. Femi carried on in his place, leading the 40-piece ensemble through its paces in an historic show at the Hollywood Bowl, his charismatic and muscular performance electrifying the packed venue. One year later, Femi organized his own band, Positive Force, releasing the album “No Cause For Alarm” and sweeping the Nigerian Fame Music Awards, winning Best Producer, Best Cross-over Song, Best Cross-over Music, Best Music, Best Single and Best Artist of the Year.
Femi released “Shoki Shoki” in 1997, and “Fight To Win” in 2001, both hits worldwide, and produced by Sodi, who engineered and produced the last seven of Fela’s fifty albums.
With its six man horn section, double trap drums, rollicking funk bass, and crowd of percussionists, led by the sinewy Femi and complimented by the sensual undulations of his smiling backup singer/dancers’ athletic glutes, Positive Force is an overwhelming rhythmic and melodic experience that will hit the listener at a multitude of levels.
These days, Femi Kuti has traded the hour-long songs and 20-minute saxophone solos of his earlier performances for shorter, more compact arrangements that are more readily accessible to non-African sensibilities unfamiliar with the drawn-out nature of early Afrobeat tunes.
As Femi says in “Live At The Shrine,” “ Music is the weapon of the future -- I only have faith in music. Even if you don't give your life to music, music will take you over. So, I just let myself go and wherever music takes me, so be it. I have no worries."
Femi Kuti and Positive Force, With Special Guests Daara J, Fri., July 22 nd, at the Orpheum Theater.
©2005 by Dean Bonzani. All Rights Reserved.