Fela Kuti smoked ritually and said so publicly. The Nigerian state used it to call his politics ridiculous. Ahead of his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, Seun and Femi Kuti on what the plant meant to their father, and what it cost him.
Sometimes it takes a while to get there, but in the end, at last, there is a reward. This November, when the lights come up at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, Fela Anikulapo Kuti‘s name will be etched in fire into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Beyond the bronze of history and the pageantry of the showbiz industry, the news carries an undeniable poetic justice: honored with the Early Influence Award, he is the first solo African artist to receive the distinction, a milestone that follows the Lifetime Achievement Award, a sort of honorary Grammy, that the Recording Academy granted him and that his children accepted in January.
For a man who made dissent his primary language and the Kalakuta Republic (his micronation in his own home!) his sovereign stronghold, these institutional laurels arrive at a time when the Western world seems to have finally figured out that Afrobeat was not a passing fad, but one of the world’s foundational musical forms. The paradox of honoring someone whom those in power relentlessly persecuted finds its clearest interpretation today in the voices of his own heirs, Seun and Femi Kuti, who have taken on the task of safeguarding their father’s legacy, an artist who never shied away from the political weight of his work, nor from his particular relationship with cannabis culture.
But no: the academies’ belated recognition does not alter the fact that music has always swayed between rhythmic genius and social agitation. For Seun Kuti, the younger of …
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Author: Hernán Panessi / High Times
