By Charles Okogene
If there are musicians that the leadership of a musical band is conferred on by a benevolent spirit when they are/were least ready for the big task, Femi Anikulapo-Kuti, is one of them. The leadership of a band as large and complicated as that of Egypt 80, fell on his laps unexpectedly; just years after joining the band.
Nature made him the leader of the band in 1984. That was the day his father, Fela Anikulapo-kuti, the acclaimed creator of Afrobeat form.of music, was arrested on charges of currency trafficking by the then military regime of Muhammadu Buhari/Tunde Idiagbo at the Muritala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) on his way to America for a musical tour. Femi and other members of the band had been checked in and moved ahead of Fela, unknown to them that he (Fela) had been stopped and taken into custody on the allegation of currency trafficking.
Femi Kuti
And since Femi and other members of the band had gotten to the ‘point of no return’, they moved on thinking that Abami Eda, as he was fondly called, will be released early enough to join them but that was never to be as he was taken to Kirikiri Prison and remanded in custody (detained) and Femi was made to step in as the leader of Egypt 80. This, in a nutshell is how Femi began his journey as a band leader.
Femi’s professional journey into the world of Afrobeat took off when he left the Shomolu abode of his mother in the 1990s and moved into the Kalakuta commune of his father somewhere in Ikeja.
There, he learnt to his astonishment, that Fela was too busy a musician to teach him how to play his cherished instrument, saxophone. But rather than give up, Femi picked up the horns instrument and schooled himself on how to play it. Having mastered it to stage level, he was admitted into the very highly technical and large Fela’s band at age 15. He went on local and foreign tours with the band and was exposed to vagaries of a musician’s life. He experienced the swings from affluence to poverty and back again. Endless hours of rehearsing, bright lights and the fun of playing on stage behind one of Nigeria’s biggest act, Fela Anikulapo-kuti. He began to perform behind Fela in major domestic and international concerts like the one in Berlin, Germany, where Fela publicly introduce him to his audience/fans as his son in whom he is well pleased (sic). This was the situation till 1984 when the mantle of leadership fell on him on their way to America.
On Femi’s return from that historic tour, he tried to establish his presence on the band as the new sheriff. He wanted to clean the image of the band, to stop old members of the band from doing things as they used to do before he took over. First, he banned members of the band from smoking Indian Hemp. However, that became his undoing, his albatross as some old members of the band who were too old to adapt to his no smoking directive, who were too old to embrace change and most importantly, who were supported by external influences revolted. They kicked and resolved that it will only happen over their dead body.
But rather than continue to impose his opinion on the recalcitrant members who where not ready to change their ways, Femi with his bosom friend, Dele Sosimi, who was the band’s keyboardist then, pulled out of Egypt 80 and formed their own band, Positive Force, in November 1986 with Sosimi as co-leader. At the initial stage, it was tough for Femi, Sosimi and other young members of the band. Though, he performed regularly at Jazz 38 Ikoyi, Grandpa’s Moustache Apapa, Claribel’s also in Apapa, only a few organisations were interested in him. On some nights the band would play to an audience of less than 10 people but Femi with the motherly support of his late Mother, Remi, and his grandmother, the band and Femi preserved because quitters don’t win and winners do not quit; with his mother, grandmother, sisters,Yeni and Sola, as his calming influences in his life, there is no doubt that Femi is now the custodian of Afrobeat and the Positive Band still has a lot to offer the world. Today, his live shows at the New Africa Shrine are seen by not less than 10,000 people every Thursdays and Sundays.
After his first international show in 1988, that took him to Montauban Angouleme and other parts of France. It was in Angouleme, one of the biggest yearly music festivals in Europe, that Femi, became his own man musically; on his return from the tour, record deals in form of contracts began to fall on his way left, right and centre with Premier Music, then Polygram releasing his debut album, ‘No Cause for Alarm in 1989. His second album, Mind Your Own Business (MYOB), was released in 1991 on Fela Anikulapo-kuti’s Kalakuta Records. It was also released on Compact Disc, which was in Vogue then, specifically for Europe market for Celluloid France.
Again in 1984, Femi made another history; he became the first artiste of his generation to sign a record deal with a foreign label, Tamla Motown. Tamla Motown is an American recording company that released highly successful Wonder, Wonder, Wonder with Beng! Beng! Beng! as his most successful albums till date.
Today, Femi is not only one of Nigeria’s biggest act on the world stage but about the only Nigerian act that has a purpose built venue, the New African Shrine, where he performs Thursdays and Sundays; Thursday is a no gate fee entry as it is a rehearsal evening for him and his Positive Force band while Sundays are N1000 gate fee.
…. Watch out for part two of this story.
With reports from a short biography prepared by Don Pedro Okojie while promoting Beng! Beng! Bengi!
