On eve of Nigerian elections and the opening of 'Fela!' in Lagos, Femi Kuti talks politics, legacy, and music

By Jessica Hundley
Femi Kuti makes something more than music. His dozen or so album releases and hugely popular concerts (“one of the more powerful live shows on Earth,” according to the Onion) are imbued with the weight of family legacy and Kuti’s own individual intents.
It is "music as message" in a way few acts take on these days –- protest and admonishment and hope all embedded in Afrobeat exuberance. In his own words, Kuti’s songs are his primary “weapon” in a lifelong struggle to bring awareness and resolution to the strife in his home country of Nigeria.



The eldest son of the great musician and activist Fela Kuti, Femi began his musical career at age 16 as a member of his father’s band. After Fela’s death in 1997, Kuti continued in his father’s footsteps, embracing outspoken activism, maverick musicianship and a relentless tour schedule. His newest effort, Africa for Africa (released April 12 on Knitting Factory Records), was recorded in the same studio where he first laid down tracks with his father.

A direct return to his roots, the album embraces raw funk and deliberately dirty production -– a mix of joyous dance beats and deeply potent lyricism. With the upcoming presidential elections in Nigeria on April 16 and the opening next week in Lagos of the Broadway hit “Fela!,” Kuti is raising his voice high, still seeking, through music, revolution, renewal and redemption.

Pop & Hiss: I’d like to hear your thoughts on music as a method of communication, a way to connect to the times. I think great music is always indicative of the moment that it’s made in. With that said, can you talk a bit about the intent of this particular record and ideally what you would like people to take from it?

Femi Kuti: I think the most important thing for Africans to understand, especially the young people of Africa to understand, is that all African countries, despite their political structures, are all one people. I want them to see that we are brothers and sisters and to try to love one another instead accepting this divide that exists for very stupid, ignorant reasons. We need to unite Africa, because we are so far behind the rest of the world. We need to take steps toward health and education for our children. We need to take care of ourselves and not rely on the West, on the rest of the world, to solve our problems.

Finally, people need to understand what 500 years of slavery did to Africa, what 50 years of colonialism did to Africa, what so many recent years of corrupt government has done to Africa. Young people, especially, need to understand this history in its context. They need to understand what people like Marcus Garvey, my father, my grandmother, people like this who sacrificed their time and their lives to fight for the emancipation of Africa.

People need to understand the past in order to step into the future. Africa has resources –- the human resources of great African doctors, athletes and artists -– collectively, as a nation, we have natural resources as well. We have what it takes to move into this future. I am trying to enlighten people on these issues and trying to encourage them to move forward.

Why do you think music is such an effective tool to communicate these messages? You’ve called it your “weapon,” and your family, of course, has always been utilizing music in this way. What makes music so powerful?

I think there are many reasons. The most important is that music is a way to make very complex things understandable, palatable. Especially for young people, people in their teens, these topics are hard to understand; these issues are difficult to digest. Young people want to have fun. They don’t want to go to hear a lesson, but if you incorporate that lesson into a musical form, it’s a way for them to understand. You could put the knowledge of a whole book into a few lines of music, and because of this, the listener can quickly visualize everything on a large scale.

Growing up, listening to my father, I was able to understand what his deeper message was. It opened my mind. His music passed on information in a way that was pleasurable, simple, moving. Young people can dance and sing, and then it is only later that they realize what the song was talking about, that it had a deeper meaning. Music is very powerful that way.

Can you talk a bit about the elections of the last few weeks and of the upcoming presidential elections in Nigeria and how have they differed in the past?

We have had years of corruption. Africans are impatient right now. They just want to make enough money to live their lives. They want a job to support their families. This is a worldwide issue, of course, at the moment. The world is struggling right now. In Africa, truly democratic elections are still evolving as a process, but they seem to be much better this time, in part because we, as a people, as voters, have the same needs. We are unified in the same pressing desire for the basic rights to an education, to healthcare, to roads, electricity -- this is the right of everyone in Africa. It belongs to the bus driver, the household workers. It’s not just for the elite. It’s for all Africa. So we are hoping that these elections are closer to attaining some form of democracy for us.

And you are part of bringing the "Fela!," the Broadway production of your father’s life, to Lagos next week. Can you talk a bit about that?

A: I wanted people here to see how Americans saw the story of my father and how he changed the world. Now, a lot of critics here resent that the show is coming because they don’t feel it’s “African” enough. They resent that an American is playing my father. They are making judgments about the performance and the dance -- that it's not “African” dance. But these are trivial criticisms. If you keep an open mind, you see that the Americans were able to communicate the message of my father in a way anyone can immediately understand.

I didn’t go to the show on Broadway wanting to see my father. I didn’t go to the show to see “African” dance. I wanted to see a show that expressed the essence of what my father meant to the world. I cried when I saw the show because that message came across so powerfully. I’m hearing complaints like the American star of the show doesn’t look like my father or sound like my father -– blah, blah, blah. But they are complaints from minds that are not open. What I want to know is, if you are going to complain about the Americans telling this story, why didn’t an African company do the show themselves? Why did no Nigerian produce this show years ago?

If it were not for this show, then I’m not sure if as many of people would be talking about my father today. Now that’s not to say that the average person on the street here in Lagos will not come and enjoy and be moved and satisfied by the show. I think the average person here will love the show. The Americans succeed in communicating my fathers’ life in a way that is understandable to all cultures. If you were to take this show to Japan, people would understand, because the Americans have told it in way that crosses those boundaries. So I think it’s important that people here in Nigeria set aside their assumptions and open their minds to it.



You’ve been playing music (with your father first) when you were 16 and have been carrying on the work of your father, in your own individual way, since his death. Does that legacy ever weigh heavily on you?

Sometimes I do think that I wish could be somewhere in Hawaii on the beach or something. And of course, I would like to be able to spend more time with my family. But these are selfish thoughts, especially when you compare this to the history of my family. There are people in my family, and many, many other people in history, who knew they might be killed for what they were doing. So you can’t compromise when you see injustice and you see the truth. I try to give myself to my family as well as to my music, but I cannot compromise.

You just had a child a few days ago. Do you have hope for the future, for the world that she’ll become a woman in?



There are so many good people in the world, people who truly want peace and love and want it now. The world at this moment is going through a very drastic, very bad time. And all these recent natural disasters -- the tsunami in Japan -- these are heartbreaking things beyond our control. But we do have control over what we do as people. And we do have control of our own lives. I try to do my music and be strong and be there for my children and keep alive that hope for the future.

Culled from Los Angeles Times




---EniOlorutidak'oseFarawek'oseF'enutembelek'oseBinuk'oseNa'kaiwosisiWiwol'aawo

Should artists accept “dirty money”?

Culled from The Cultural Weapon


Should artists accept “dirty money”?

Mike van Graan

A number of things strike one on entering Bamako, the capital of Mali. The first is the majestic Niger River responsible for much of the green in an otherwise dusty, gravelly, semi-desert city. Another is the industriousness of the people in an obviously poor country, as everyone is trying to generate even a meagre income selling mangoes, chickens and home-made furniture, or Chinese-manufactured T-shirts, electricity adapters and slip slops. Then there are some incongruously tall buildings and hotels, a number of the latter bearing the name “Libya Hotels”. One garish building is named after the Libyan dictator, Gaddafi, who has funded this – still empty - structure to house the Malian cabinet. There are two bridges across the Niger with a third being built by the Chinese.

As one walks through the market, there are hand-made posters in defence of Gaddafi, and in conversation with some of the locals, it is clear that there is much sympathy for the one time, wannabe-head of the United States of Africa.

Mali is ranked in the top half of the Mo Ibrahim Index on Governance in Africa and shares second spot for the best media freedom in Africa. But Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world with an average income of $680 per year and a ranking of 160 (out of 179 countries) on the Human Development Index. Should a country like Mali that is making great strides in human rights and freedoms – but which is relatively poor and in need of development assistance – accept aid from countries with extremely poor records in human rights and media freedom?

This is a similar question vexing some artists and arts organisations: should they accept “dirty money” that contradicts their own values of freedom of expression and fundamental human rights? Funding is often used to buy credibility, to buy political or other influence, to boost an image in need of a makeover, or simply to co-opt and mute critical thought and practice.

So, should arts organisations, cultural institutions and individual artists – given that they often struggle to survive and are more often than not in need of funding – accept support from countries with poor human rights records and that might even suppress artistic freedom in their own countries? How far back does one go to determine whether money is “dirty”? Previous Cultural Weapons have highlighted how European countries like France, the United Kingdom and Germany are increasingly compromising fundamental human rights and principles of cultural diversity, particularly with regard to immigrant communities. So, should funding be accepted from these countries? Is their funding not rooted in the repressive colonial period, partly in contemporary neo-colonial relationships and their current trade with countries that do not have exemplary human rights records?

And how many western countries that profess support for human rights and democracy, such as the USA, are not guilty of direct or indirect abuse of human rights whether through the torture of prisoners, illegal wars (not sanctioned by the United Nations) or propping up repressive regimes that serve their interests?

But if government funding may be dirty, what of funding from the private sector, from those that trade with and so sustain governments that abuse human rights, or who generate profits through weapons that are used for war against citizens, or through environmental destruction or simply through highly exploitative labour practices or who put profits before people such as drug companies who deny cheaper life-saving drugs to people who need them? Should funding be accepted from such companies? And what of more “harmless” funding from tobacco companies or wine companies that impact directly or indirectly on health and social problems? Should artists accept funding from the lottery that some regard as another form of tax, especially on the poor?

The reality is that it is very difficult, if nigh impossible, to find “clean money”, that in a world as structurally and historically inequitable as ours, with the global free market perpetuating these inequities, it is likely that all funding is tainted in some way or another. So then, is funding from any source morally acceptable, simply because it is unlikely to find funding that is not morally compromised through its generation, its source, its role or the associated strings?

Prof Es’kia Mphahlele, a highly respected South African writer and community activist who passed away a few years ago once said to the effect of “the closer dirty money gets to me, the cleaner it becomes”.

His was a pragmatic approach, one that did not see the world in binary opposites, but as a morally complex labyrinth. If the money is used to achieve a good end or a morally sound objective, then that would be acceptable in terms of this approach.

Sometimes, it is those with options, those with resources, those in relatively privileged positions who may make more “moral” choices so that a more wealthy country may not accept funding from Gaddafi, but a country like Mali – also trying to assert greater economic and political independence from its former colonial master - has fewer options. Similarly, artists and arts organisations with greater funder or income diversity are more able to adopt morally superior positions than those with less access to international or other funding sources. (Not only do the rich have more options, but they can also be more opportunistic, such as the artists from the West who were paid huge amounts to perform at a Gaddafi function, only to rush to return or donate the money to charity after he turned his guns on protesting Libyans).

The locals in Mali speak of how the construction of the building to house the country’s cabinet ministers is often halted by Gaddafi when he is unhappy with some internal Malian policy or international public position that Mali takes. (One can but wonder about the dynamics and varying interests of the current AU delegation to Libya that includes the Malian President).

In a complex global economic and political order where there are few absolutes with respect to human rights and only degrees of respect for such universal values, it is unlikely that one can adopt a one-size-fits-all policy about whom to accept funding from, and who not. It would appear to be a question of whether the individual artist or the organisation could live with the written and unspoken strings that come with such funding. Would an association with the source of funding compromise one’s image or the pursuit of one’s core objectives? Would it compromise one’s ability to “speak truth to power” and be a form of co-option or lead to self-censorship? Will it compromise solidarity with artists in the country of the source of funding?

Generally, there is a contract between a donor and the recipient spelling out the terms and conditions of the funding arrangements, and articulating the expectations of the donor. Perhaps - at least for organisations concerned about harming their image and reputations with funding from potentially compromising sources – recipients should draft a document that would form part of the contract, outlining their own values and principles, and the terms upon which such funding is accepted i.e. that the organisation will not change its principles, values, objectives or forsake its right to speak truth to power, even if such “power” includes the donor.


NOTES
1. The views expressed in this column are entirely those of the writer and are necessarily representative of any of the organisations in which he is involved.
2. This column may be forwarded by the recipient to any other interested party, and may be reproduced by any publication or website at no charge, provided that writer is acknowledged.
3. To engage with the content of this column or to provide feedback, go to www.mikevangraan.wordpress.com


Mike van Graan is the Secretary General of Arterial Network, a continent-wide network of artists, activists and creative enterprises active in the African creative sector and its contribution to development, human rights and democracy on the continent. He is also the Executive Director of the African Arts Institute (AFAI), a South African NGO based in Cape Town that harnesses local expertise, resources and markets in the service of Africa’s creative sector. He is considered to be one of his country’s leading contemporary playwrights.

For further information, see www.arterialnetwork.org, www.africanartsinstitute.org.za and www.mikevangraan.co.za