Seun Kuti – Music is the weapon

Seun Kuti won’t admit to writer’s block. He will, however, concede to having spent the past week or two pacing listlessly from room to room waiting for the words and notes for his next album to fall into an easy rhythm. “You can’t go out, you can’t listen to music, you just have to sit at home and write all day. It’s all there, I’m just waiting for it to come,” he says wearily of the songwriting process, his voice followed down the phone line by a snatch of distorted hip-hop.

The rooms Kuti wanders between are, of course, the same in which his father, Fela Kuti, sired the music and movement he named Afrobeat. At home in Lagos, Nigeria, in the commune-cum-compound his father named the Kalakuta Republic and declared an independent state – its second incarnation, the first was famously razed to the ground by police in 1977 – the 26-year-old says his project is to use music the same way his father did: as a weapon.

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“Everyone has their different reasons for playing music. For me, Afrobeat is about the emancipation of the black race. Afrobeat is not only music, it is a socio-cultural and political movement, and music is the most powerful force of this energy,” says Kuti.

In this sense, Kuti’s new album, Many Things, picks up directly where his father left off. Backed by the magical tapestry of interwoven funk and jazz that is Egypt 80 – a band he has performed with since famously joining his father on stage at the tender age of 8 – Seun’s songs are as much tirades against poverty and corruption as they are hymns to the fire and tenacity of the African spirit.

Mosquito Song, for example, unfurls with the playful yet deceptively pointed lyrics “E bite me for hand, E bite me for leg”, in turn offering as much reason to dance as it does to reflect on the deadly swathe malaria cuts across Africa each year. Similarly, African Problemsunfolds in the manner of a call to arms: “I must try to teach the people a new mentality, make dem (sic) appreciate Africa’s superiority…We must start to think of tomorrow, fight for the future.” Seun says the lyrics of the latter are targeted squarely at African youth. “Life is so tough in Africa, the young people are just interested in surviving. The song is about looking ahead and getting interested in politics.”

While Seun slips into his father’s shoes with sylphlike ease on a figurative level – he claims never to have laid a toe inside the elaborate collection of his father’s footwear that famously sits behind glass in a Kalakuta cabinet – he insists Egypt 80 is not a memorial band. Quite by contrast, Afrobeat should rather be considered a sound that lives, evolves, responds and feeds off the cultural conditions that inform it, he argues. “The role of Afrobeat is to spread the message of the common man and his experiences, not only in Africa but also to the West. In Africa, the internet is a luxury item and so is a good education. We have to find other ways to get the information across, and one way, a very powerful way, to do this is through music.”

Still, Seun is the first to admit his father’s is no easy act to follow. Perhaps best known in the west as the dope-smoking renegade who once married 27 women in one day, Fela was – despite the playboy antics – never a rebel without a cause. Gigs at Fela’s original Shrine nightclub in the 1970s were, in fact, regularly interspersed with lively political debate and discussion. Frequently beaten, harassed and incarcerated by police for penning lyrics that tracked the despair, poverty, political injustices, religious indoctrination and widespread corruption endemic to his homeland, Fela’s words were always just as important, if not more so, than his music.

In continuing his father’s tradition, Seun says he finds songwriting more an enlivening than daunting process, even if he does have his father’s formidable reputation leaving an accent on every note he strikes. “I grew up with Afrobeat. I breathe it. But I don’t see a conflict in continuing my father’s legacy and finding my own voice at the same time. I don’t see this as a weight or a responsibility; I see this as who I am. I am always moving forward and it is imperative that Afrobeat continues on. For me, it’s not just a question of finding my own voice, it’s larger than that.”

Afrobeat’s longevity, however, is no one-man project. Impressive showmanship aside, Seun’s success springs in large part from the mastery and cohesion – both in sound and spirit – of Egypt 80. A band that is more an extended family than simply a clutch of musicians, 12 of its 16-strong orchestra played with Kuti during the heady Kalakuta Republic and Shrine nightclub heydays. As did Seun’s mother who, up until her death last year, performed as a backing singer. “Everywhere I have been in my life, the band members have always been there too. (Making music) is very democratic, we’re quite outspoken with each other. Our relationships are very strong, and there is a long history,” says Seun.

Of course, there are some parts of his father’s legacy Seun isn’t overly keen to adopt. Where Fela frequently delighted in strutting the stage in his underwear, Seun says, not without some laughter, that he’ll be happy to keep his clothes on during his upcoming performance at WOMAD. Moreover, despite appearing in the Many Things liner notes kitted out in red flares and a tiger print shirt, and at recent London gigs buttoned into a ginger, two-piece paisley print suit, he says he’s no fashion enthusiast. “Well, yes, I like to look good on stage but it’s not a fashion shoot. Those pop stars who do five costume changes a show, that’s not for me.”

The same goes for the idea of taking 27 wives in one day, apparently. “Oh no, the first thing you learn when you grow up in a home with 27 women is that you don’t want to go out with so many women yourself. My father was a very special man to handle that amount of stress,” Seun says definitively.

As for the changing nature of the music industry, and the way in which numerous white-bread indie rockers (Vampire Weekend, for one) have recently borrowed Afrobeat rhythms and spun them into neat-edged, apolitical pop snippets, Seun remains circumspect. “You can’t stop someone from being inspired by the music, but Afrobeat does lose its spirit and purpose when it’s used that way. But maybe people will hear this and come back to the source.”

As for whether Afrobeat will help to bring change to Africa, Seun says he wouldn’t have chosen his path if he didn’t believe music could make a difference. “I don’t believe that people who actually look for change find it. I believe that change comes to you.”

Perhaps you just have to be listening.

S. Stakhanov