Until June 11, 2023, the Cité de la Musique in Paris presents the exhibition “Fela Kuti, Rebellion Afrobeat” dedicated to one of the pillars of “The Epic of Black Music”, the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti who died in 1997. Thanks to the testimonies of his contemporaries and friends, we immerse ourselves this week in the artistic universe of a rebellious Nigerian whose activism still arouses admiration and fascination.
Alexandre Girard-Muscagorry is in charge of the collections, Africa, Asia, Oceania and Americas, at the Musée de la Musique in Paris. He is also co-curator of the exhibition. It depicts Fela’s commitment through his works and sheds light on his social and political impact at the heart of the 20th century: “For Fela, music had no meaning if it was not at the service of the development of society, if it was not at the service of causes for which he fought. Throughout the 1970s to 1980s he spoke out against the corruption of political and economic elites in Nigeria but also across Africa and ultimately the world. He presented himself as the voice of the most precarious people. His music has therefore always been rooted in his citizen struggles. These two aspects are inseparable. We date Fela’s awareness to the end of the 1960s, after his passage to the United States where he met Sandra Smith who entrusted him with the autobiography of Malcolm X and various other Afro-centrist publications intended to reverse the classic narrative of the African history and to mobilize black people against colonization. From 1976, Fela really got involved in Nigerian political life. He initially founded a youth platform, the Young African Pioneers (YAP), inspired by the Ghana Young Pioneers created by Kwame Nkrumah. He brings together a number of activists, he also writes a thirty-page manifesto in which he draws the outlines of a very structured Nigerian society.
Fela will constantly seek to step outside the box, to experiment. He will never be satisfied with consensus and monotony. Mabinuori Kayode Idowu nicknamed “ID” was one of the relatives of the “Black President” whom he met in 1974. He saw very closely the flashes and artistic outbursts of his companion in struggle. Now a dashing septuagenarian, ID remembers the creation of the Yap News, an opinion newspaper for which he had editorial responsibility: “At the time when we created this magazine, all political gatherings were prohibited. Our idea was therefore to use the Yap News to raise awareness and mobilize young people. We wanted to prove that there was an alternative to colonization. Fela was certainly an artist, but his domain of Kalakuta had become the headquarters of social and political rebellion. He was not a politician but could easily broach all types of subjects with his interlocutors or detractors”.
Fela Kuti became an emblematic figure in the fight against oppression at the dawn of the 1980s. France supported his positions and welcomed him with open arms. The image of the courageous survivor, juggler and boaster, suits her as long as she espouses her cause. He meets and places his trust in young collaborators to magnify his repertoire and refine his aura. Sodi Marciszewer, current producer of Femi Kuti, was one of the architects of this return to grace: “Fela’s Afrobeat is committed music, full of energy, tenacious. His rebellion is not expressed only in his texts. It exists in his way of composing, in his way of orchestrating, instrumentalizing his songs, directing his musicians.
The exhibition “Fela Kuti, Rebellion Afrobeat” does not immortalize a pan-African soul. It revitalizes it!
⇒ The Fela Kuti, Afrobeat Rebellion exhibition at the Cité de la Musique in Paris.