Seun, son of Afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, has announced the commencement of a planned North American tour in support of his new album, From Africa With Fury: Rise. On the tour, the Afrobeat act will be heading up Egypt 80, the extraordinary combo first fronted by his renowned father.
The tour begins in Los Angeles, California, at Grand Performances on July 15 and wraps up on July 30 at Floydfest in Floyd, Virginia VA.
Seun Kuti has also released the music video for the track “Rise”, off the new album. The Juliet Rios & Gabe Imlay-directed video finds Seun leading his band, surrounded by dancers from the Fela! Broadway Musical.
Produced by Brian Eno, John Reynolds, and Kuti, with additional production by Godwin Logie, and mixed by John Reynolds and Tim Oliver, the mighty new From Africa With Fury: Rise captures Seun and Egypt 80’s extraordinary power, fraught with the scorching rhythms and kinetic funk energy that has earned the band – as ever, under the leadership of alto saxophonist Lekan Animashaun – worldwide acclaim as one of today’s most incendiary live acts.
The album artwork is created by, Ghariokwu Lemi, who also created many of the distinct Fela Anikulapo-Kuti album covers.
From Africa With Fury: Rise will be officially available from June 21.
Oluseun Anikulapo Kuti (born 1982), commonly known as Seun Kuti, is youngest son of legendary afrobeat pioneer Fela Anikulapo-Kuti who, also heads his late father’s former band Egypt 80.
Seun and his brother Femi are the two successful musical offspring of the late Nigerian afrobeat innovator Fela Kuti. Seun has one younger sister who used to sing in his band. At the age of nine Seun expressed the wish to sing to his father. A short while later Seun started acting as a sort of mascot and would sing a few songs backed by Egypt 80 before his father took to the stage. Since then, Seun has followed the political and social ethos of his father.
After Fela’s death of AIDS in 1997 Seun, then only 14 years old, became the lead singer of Egypt 80. While in school Seun had to choose between a career in music and one in American Football for which he has an outstanding talent. He had a friend performing for crowds too, sometimes consisting of only 3 or 4 people. He honed his musical skills for several years. Those skills were showcased to the world with his 2008 debut album, Many Things, produced by Martin Meissonnier, who had already produced two albums for his father.
About three-fourths of the current Egypt 80 line-up consists of musicians that not only played with Fela, but often were arrested and harassed alongside the founder of the Afrobeat movement. Live sets consist of both new material and originals from Seun’s father.
Seun has kept the grace, energy and strength of his father Fela. With Egypt 80’s musicians, the legendary Fela’s group, he makes live again the most original incarnation of Afro beat : using the phrases, the solid brass section, the incomparable groove of African percussion and voices. With an astonishing maturity, Seun leads with tremendous energy his band on stage, playing his father’s repertory as well as his own compositions.
“What inspires me is the time that I live in,” Kuti says. “Basically what is happening today in Africa are the same things that were happening 40 years ago, when my father was songwriting, but they’re happening in different ways. So when I write my music, it’s from the perspective of a 27-year-old man living in 2011, instead of a 30-year-old man living in the 1970s.”
Sadly, Kuti finds himself challenging many of the same injustices his father fought in his heyday, from corporate greedheads to militaristic leaders to the ever-futile war on drugs. Perhaps the album’s most unequivocal battle cry is the blistering “Rise”, in which Kuti impels listeners to fight “the petroleum companies” that “use our oil to destroy our land,” “the diamond companies” that “use our brothers as slaves for the stone,” and “companies like “Monsanto and Halliburton” which “use their food to make my people hungry.” But where Fela’s work often featured an explicit call to revolution, Seun’s goal is subtler. He sees his role as that of an educator, speaking truth to power in order to provoke awareness and debate throughout his beloved homeland.
“In Africa today, most people are struggling in silence,” Kuti says. “The systematic oppression of the people has made them blinded to their reality. Everybody’s just thinking about survival. Nobody wants to stand up for anything, everybody just wants to tow the line. So I’m trying to make people think about these things that they are forgetting. I want to inspire people to want things to change.”
Seun Kuti is determined to speak to the new generation of young Africans born after his father’s glory days. If he learned but one lesson from Fela, it is that that no one has greater impact on hearts and mind than the true artist. As such, the powerhouse protest music found on From Africa With Fury: Rise serves as a kind of musical antidote to the corporate pop that he feels is polluting Africa’s airwaves, distracting its citizens from the things that truly matter.
“Music has great impact on people’s feelings,” Kuti says. “That’s what music should be. Pop music today is all about me, me, me. Nobody is singing about we. But nothing can change if we don’t look out for our brothers and sisters.”
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