Femi Kuti Addendum

2009-06-05T07:57:00.002-05:00

Kuti's last few albums have been available in the States, but if you'd like to hear where his solo career got its start, check out his debut, No Cause For Alarm, with his first band, the Positive Force. Oro posted it here a few days ago.

Nigerian Authorities Shutter Femi Kuti's New Africa Shrine

2009-05-31T13:36:00.007-05:00

We've been here before. In a move that surely would have given his father deja vu, Femi Kuti's Africa Shrine venue in Lagos has been closed by the Nigerian government, just days before he heads across the Atlantic to tour the U.S.

The club, co-managed by Femi and his sister Yeni, is located in an economically depressed area of Lagos, which according to many sources has not had electricity for some time. Femi has led a poster campaign calling for the return of electricity, a sure way to get yourself on the hit list of a government that frequently uses thuggish tactics to quiet its critics.

Agence France Presse reports:

Yeni Kuti, a dancer and the eldest child of Fela Kuti, who co-manages the club with Femi, said the state government gave the Kuti family 48 hours "to abate the nuisance and restore the land to a conducive environment" but closed the club less than 24 hours after the delivery of the letter.

"I'm shocked, indignant. They dropped the note on Monday evening and the next day at 9:00 am they had closed the place," she told AFP.

The charge that led to the closure is a classic: "noise nuisance, illegal street trading, indiscriminate parking, blocking of access roads and obstruction of traffic." Traffic delays in Lagos? Never. This is exactly the kind of non-specific potpourri of charges corrupt authorities use when they have no case.

Femi, of course, is the son of Fela Kuti, the legendary king of Afrobeat, whose own run-ins with a series of Nigerian regimes were often accompanied by army and police-perpetrated violence, in the most severe case leading to the burning of his home and the death of his mother.

Femi's Shrine was similarly targeted only a year ago, when police “raided” it with no warrant and for no apparent reason, arresting hundreds without stated charges.

Kuti is headed to the U.S. To promote his most recent album, Day By Day, a record that reflects his commitment to social causes in its lyrics. If Femi's poster campaign wasn't enough, “Tell Me,” which pointedly accuses the government of not caring about the homeless children of Lagos (probably not an inaccurate allegation), might have put some pissant mid-level official over the edge.

This video gives a pretty good impression of what the modern Shrine is like. For more, check here.

This one gives a taste of Fela's original Shrine, as it looked in the early 1980s:

This entry has a representative selection of photographs from a Femi Kuti show by Ghanaian photographer Nana Kofi Acquah.

Xenophilia

Femi Kuti Addendum

Nigerian Authorities Shutter Femi Kuti's New Africa Shrine