Femi Kuti by Nicolas Hidiroglou The mythology of Fela Anikulapo Kuti is unrivaled in music. As the story goes, the Nigerian Afrobeat pioneer stood tall in the face of vicious, politically-charged harassment from the government for nearly three decades. His Kalakuta Republic compound was raided relentlessly, including a 1977 incident in which soldiers fatally tossed his elderly mother out a window and burned and destroyed nearly every piece of Fela's livelihood. Despite the raids and countless dubious arrests, Fela endured, smoking massive spliffs while sporting tighty whiteys, delivering a big F-U to his foes in the form of long, sinewy, nasty funk tracks over which he taunted the government and its military. He was the Black President long before Obama. It's the stuff of legend.

But, as with any legend, there's some wiggle room between mythology and reality. The fable makes little space for Fela's frustration and fatigue in his incessant but ultimately unsuccessful battle with a brutal regime. The myth largely overlooks the 1990s, when Fela grew increasingly frail and his defiant message more muddled. When he succumbed to an AIDS-induced illness in August 1997, he was immortalized.

Few have felt that gap between myth and truth more than Femi Kuti, Fela's son and the heir to the Afrobeat throne. Since long before his father's death, the 46-year-old multi-instrumentalist has been the dominant face of Afrobeat, taking his Positive Force band across the globe and releasing five studio albums, a live DVD, a best-of collection and a remix album. His seventh studio album, Day by Day (Downtown Records), hit stores on November 18.

He has had a remarkable career by any standard. Femi has also faced a bitter dose of reality. Shortly after Fela died in August 1997, Femi's younger sister, Sola, died of cancer. Five years later, on the heels of his two most successful records, Shoki Shoki and Fight to Win, Femi was sacked by his French record label, his band split up and his wife, Funke, a dancer and singer in his band and the mother of his 12-year-old son, Omrinmade ("Made"), left him. To cap it all off, Femi's mother, Remi, with whom he was very close, died at the age of 60. As Femi spent time in France recording parts of Fight to Win, rumors swirled back home that he was in an asylum.

"It was a very traumatic period for me," he says. "I was in a lot of emotional pain. I had to be a father and mother to my son. It was difficult leaving him at home to work. It was a very hard time."

Femi Kuti by Mary Grace Dunn Meanwhile, a revolt of sorts was beginning in his extended family. Seun Kuti, a precocious and talented singer and saxophonist and Femi's half-brother, had aligned with Martin Meissonier, an acclaimed French producer and manager who had worked with Fela in the 1980s. Seun brought in many of his father's instrumentalists and kept the Egypt 80 moniker Fela had given them. Meanwhile, widespread reports in Nigeria told of tension between the half-brothers over the Kuti legacy. Seun's scorching 2008 debut album, Many Things is full of blistering Afrobeat and drew broad acclaim. Femi was widely credited with introducing his father's music to a new generation and ushering in an explosion in global interest in Afrobeat in the late 1990s, but now someone else was demanding a seat at the table.

"People just wanted to start a fight and cause friction," Femi says. "People tried to play with my emotions and tried to make me look bad. I never understood the competition. I never had a problem with him. People have said that I didn't want him to succeed and that I didn't want him to play music. How can I stop him from playing music? Who am I to do that?"

Personal strife was compounded by national chaos. Corruption reigned under Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria's president from 1999-2007 and the man who helmed the military when it harassed Fela in the 1970s. Despite being home to one of the largest oil reserves on the planet, nearly 70-percent of Nigeria's 140 million people live below the poverty line, and one in 20 are infected with HIV/AIDS. The 2007 election of Obasanjo's handpicked successor, Umaru Yar'Adua, was widely regarded as fraudulent.

Yar'Adua's election had frightening consequences for Femi and his sister Yeni, who in 2000 had opened the New Africa Shrine, a performance and community space in the vein of their father's Shrine, which was destroyed along with his commune in 1977. In December 2007, after years of peaceful relations with police, law enforcement raided the Shrine and hundreds of patrons were beaten and arrested. As a result of the incident, the 2,000-strong attendance at Femi's thrice-weekly performances at the Shrine dwindled to just a few hundred until recently starting to rebound. "They succeeded in scaring people for a while," Femi says.

Continue reading for more on Femi Kuti...   People are so poor and desperate. They have nothing, and the churches get people to donate their money for prayers. Wouldn't it be better if that money went towards a better medical system for people and a better education system for their children? The pastors live like gods. People need to understand the effect of religion on our lives.

-Femi Kuti   Photo by: Nicolas Hidiroglou

Enter the trumpet. Of all the things to get Femi through his darkest hours, he turned to an instrument that he had only dabbled with in his nearly 30-year career. Femi says that more than any other instrument, the trumpet demands commitment. That devotion has made him serene in a country largely devoid of serenity.

Femi & Made Kuti "The trumpet has really helped me become a calmer person and I really don't get that angry anymore," he says. "With the saxophone, you can leave it for a few weeks and come back, but you can't really do that with the trumpet. You must do it every day, and it has made me more disciplined in many ways. It has changed my life."

He's also mended fences with Seun. Femi says his half-brother has apologized for his role in the tiff, and has since performed at the Shrine. "The trumpet has helped me focus on what is important in my life, and I have found it easier to move forward from little things like that," he says.

The most important thing to Femi now is his children. He has three of his own, and has also adopted four others, all friends of Made whose parents were reportedly too poor to look after them. Much as his father Fela took him under his wing and made him a part of his band as a teenager, Femi has brought Made on tour for several years, and has made a place for him in his band. Made plays saxophone on all of Day by Day and sings on the song "One Two." To Femi, passing on his father's legacy to his own son is his life's goal.

"My ultimate objective before I leave this world is to give to him everything I know and arm him with all of the musical knowledge I have," he says. "That is now the purpose of my life."

Femi's tranquility is reflected in the music of Day by Day. While you could hear his anger on the tracks he unveiled on his 2004 Live at the Shrine DVD, Day by Day is jazzier, more melodic and less forceful. The title track features a lilting, gospel-infused chorus.

Femi Kuti by Nicolas Hidiroglou However, the emerging personal calm in his life and music hasn't made Femi less angry about the state of his country and the African continent. On Day by Day, he rails against the negative impact of religion in Africa, and questions the value of democracy in a continent that is so riddled with corruption and whose fate is so intertwined with financial assistance from global institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

"I have no faith in religion, and we face a battle to educate people that they are wasting their time," he says. "People need to understand how religion came to Africa. It came to Africa brutally. Christians came here and took our people, they took our gold and they gave us Jesus Christ. Islam came and took our gold and gave us Muhammad. People go to church every day, they spend the night in church at night vigils, waiting for the savior to come."

On one seven-kilometer road near his home in Lagos, Femi counts 58 churches, many with pastors who travel in private jets and some of the nicest cars in Nigeria. "How many churches do you need?" he asks. "People are so poor and desperate. They have nothing, and the churches get people to donate their money for prayers. Wouldn't it be better if that money went towards a better medical system for people and a better education system for their children? The pastors live like gods. People need to understand the effect of religion on our lives."

Femi has little faith that democracy alone will allow African countries to get out from under the weight of corruption, poverty, and disease. He says with the U.S., China and European nations so reliant on Africa for mineral resources like oil and diamonds, Western governments fuel the fires that turn into war and genocide. "If America, China and Europe did not buy these things from these people, what would they have to sell to fund their wars?" he asks. "This has been going on for hundreds of years."

Although poverty and corruption have vexed his country all his life, Femi knows that change is inevitable. Fela's formation of his own political party in the 1970s and his indomitable anti-establishment crusade earned him the nickname "Black President." Now, the U.S. has its own. "Nobody believed that a black man would ever become President of the United States - NEVER," he says, with joy in his voice. "I don't even know if Obama ever believed it himself."

Despite years of personal and national strife that would break most men, Femi sounds rejuvenated. At 46, he's brimming with energy to write and record new music and do what he does best: deliver one of the best live shows on the planet.

"I now know how to tackle family and political problems better," he says. "I will handle it all much better now. I've been writing more, and I'm ready to go back into the studio. The people have been waiting too long for this album. I hope they forgive me."

A behind the scenes making of Day by Day

Femi Kuti will be on tour in America this January. Dates available here.

JamBase | Worldwide
Go See Live Music!

The Hold Steady/Drive-By Truckers :: 11.23.08 :: The Fillmore :: San Francisco, CA

P. Hood (DBT) & C. Finn (THS) :: 11.03 On some level, one looks for a reflection of their own life in the music they gravitate towards, some vibrational verisimilitude that feels right. We also want this music to be angled enough to offer us fresh perspectives on what we already know, new paths into wisdom and beauty. Even the most far out stuff still has to retain some core that speaks to our sense of the world or it's just unanchored nonsense. And there's some music that cuts to the quick, speaking to truths so widespread, so self-evident for most of us that they wave around broken hearts and overdue bills while spilling their drink on whatever unlucky son of a bitch happens to be in proximity. Maybe if you've never wanted to punch your boss or taken enough drugs to feel REALLY scared or always had more than enough money in your pocket you might not connect with The Hold Steady or Drive-By Truckers. But for most of us living paycheck to paycheck, eking out happiness and amusement where we can, this pairing on the "Rock And Roll Means Well Tour" was pretty much as good a refraction of reality as it gets at the first night of their Fillmore run.

In total honesty, I've seen both bands give more hell-bent performances in the past but there's much to be said about two contemporaries that are so consistently satisfying that you can set your pocket watch to 'em. Without fail, DBT and THS put on a fine rock show. Period. You can change the dates and venues but I'd put the $5 bucks I have in my wallet down that you'll leave ANY gig by either band smiling. That is as long as you love the sometimes silly, weirdly moving spectacle that is pure blood rock 'n' fuckin' roll. To wit, Patterson Hood joining The Hold Steady at the end of their set for a sloppy, utterly sincere romp through Blue Oyster Cult's "Burnin' For You." It wasn't polished or sarcastic or anything else that hinted at distance from the goofier aspects of their craft. It was fun loving and ample inspiration to spill one's own drink on a stranger.

Craig Finn - The Hold Steady :: 11.03 The Hold Steady had the first slot, and both bands played approximately 90-minute sets followed by a mega-sized joint encore. The handclap assault began promptly with "Sequestered In Memphis," with Craig Finn in full nigh-epileptic shake, punk roots showing in messy note bursts and a prominent bare fisted attitude from the whole band, especially guitarist Tad Kubler, a blessed mix of Neil Young feedback boogie, Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick) razor bubblegum and Greg Ginn (Black Flag) bite. "Same Kooks" plowed into "Constructive Summer" and that into a tale of seven grams short Charlemagne. As they pointed out, "Once you start dying you're already dead," and their set seemed designed to resurrect. As fine as their recent Stay Positive is (see JamBase's review here) every selection from it live had a crackling energy that'd make Frankenstein's monster snap to attention and pump the air wildly. While the ornamentation of the studio versions is lost it was more than made up for by a chugging oomph that showed the new material is completely consonant with anything off Separation Sunday or Boys and Girls In America. And conversely, older cuts like "Multitude of Casualties" took on a mild but pleasant sophistication, largely due to the bell chimes, back room piano and other grand accents from keyboardist-moustache enthusiast Franz Nicolay.

Something apparent is both bands' naked love of their music. They get off on the sounds they make. They bust one for the cool lines or ballsy guitar solos or well placed electric piano tinkles. They know they're good, and at The Fillmore they used that confidence to spark against one another in unspoken but friendly competition. No inch would be given, none asked, and each played as solid a show as one could want. Neither was performing just for their faithful so there was a degree of translation involved for each camp's hardcores, but the groups share a bedrock love affair with ROCK in the capitalized, ecclesiastical sense that unified the audience all night. And put bluntly, it's hard to not get off when the bands are gushing geysers.

Mike Cooley - Drive-By Truckers :: 11.03 It's also worth noting how really comfortable both DBT and THS have gotten with sentiment. Each band let a tear fall in their beer more than a few times. This may be a byproduct of age, having kids or just a softening that occurs when life has tenderized you with disasters and disappointments for a few decades. It's more difficult to keep up a tough guy stance when you've seen a few dreams and friends die. Personally, I like the kinder, gentler sides of these bands and reveled in the unguarded sniffles of The Hold Steady's epic, swoony rendition of "Lord, I'm Discouraged" and the barely contained pain of the Truckers' "The Living Bubba." As if either band needed more humanizing elements, this newfound comfort level with sincerity and simple, heartfelt emotions was one of the neatest, most moving parts of this gig.

However, the general tone of the evening was rowdy, raucous and other boisterous words that begin with "R". I think there's something fundamentally wrong with you if you don't lose your mind a little during "Massive Nights" (which I and everyone around me surely did) or the version of "Navy Sheets" THS offered up that suggested what Television might sound like if they'd imbibed a knee shaking amount of tequila and weed. "Everybody wants something sweet," cried Finn as they stuffed hard candy down our throats. Later, Finn ruminated on how "some songs get so scratched into our souls," and it was apparent that they'd made a good-sized indentation into most of us. The Hold Steady work in a sort of six-pack pathos that understands why the boys and girls in America are so sad together AND why we don't really have to be. They drive us to get past ourselves, to bust through our scabs and engage, even if it hurts like the dickens. Sure, we can dance alone but they remind us how much nicer it is to swing and sway with others, even if we come off the dance floor with a black eye from time to time.

P. Hood (DBT) & C. Finn (THS) :: 11.03 The Truckers emerged in front of a backdrop of big gray-tinged clouds and hovering black birds, freedom and foreboding oozing from Wes Freed's paints before they cranked up a note. It's fitting because you can really feel DBT in the marrow of you. They're a rhythm 'n' blues spinal tap that can leave you stirred up. From the all-out rockers like "Ronnie and Neil" to more nuanced fare like "Feb 14," a heaviness clung to their set, which didn't skip like The Hold Steady but held up just fine in terms of density. Their terrifically weather beaten hearts were on their sleeves, while Mike Cooley delivered his guitar hero best and Patterson preached unapologetically from his microphone pulpit. Like Finn, Hood is an air puncher and reluctant to let rock get too refined. Sure, the boardwalk organ flourishes and piano splashes from DBT's new keyboardist spread color around, but the real meat of the music can be summed up in the line from "The Righteous Path," played with stunning power this eve, where Hood growled, "No time for self pity or self-righteous crap/ Trying to stay focused on the righteous path."

Cooley had the gnarled grandeur of vintage Merle Haggard on "Checkout Time In Vegas" and Shonna Tucker continued to prove she's every bit ready to be a singer-songwriter voice in this band during "Home Field Advantage," as well as being one of the sturdiest, grooviest bassist in rock today. DBT are clearly dedicated to their newest album, Brighter Than Creation's Dark, pulling the bulk of their set from it. But it's easy to see why when one hears all the new pockets opening up from the studio versions, particularly the stormy menace of "Goode's Field Road," an undeniable highlight for many of us, and the dirty sex stickiness of "3 Dimes Down."

When the Truckers returned for the encore they destroyed Springsteen's "Adam Raised A Cain" and soon The Hold Steady came out to join them for some really messy (in a great way) work on show-stopper "Let There Be Rock." Both bands remained for the rest of the show, which included Van Halen's "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love," Warren Zevon's "Play It All Night Long" and Jim Carroll's "People Who Died." After roughly 45-minutes of madness the night came to an end with Hood and Finn on their knees and backs, shouting lyrics, sweating, grinding against each other, adding words and just getting fuckin' rocked out. Stained in the aftermath and dripping in glory, the last thing Hood said was, "Rock and roll means well... No it don't! It means to fuck you up and that's why we love it so."

Consider us good and fucked up, Mr. Hood.

JamBase | Flattened
Go See Live Music!