A Year of Blind Spots: Femi Kuti

Joe is working through a list of albums that he considers "blind spots," i.e. albums that he's never heard but feels like he should.

Femi Kuti

Femi Kuti

1995

What 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die has to say about Femi Kuti by Femi Kuti:

The offspring of trailblazers have it hard, and it would be easy to dismiss Femi as Fela-lite, if only his recordings did not continually prove otherwise. Furthermore, while Fela was often treated by oh-so sophisticated Westerners as a colorful eccentric, one who politics were the result of too much herb and voodoo, Femi is a lot harder to ignore.

As a musician, he learned his chops playing sax with his dad in Egypt in the early 1980s. Although Fela's musical power was waning, this was a time of incredible political upheaval, of violence by the authoritarian Nigerian government, and barbed songs by the musician, and Femi could hardly have failed to be influenced. When he left Fela's band to start his own, Positive Force, the differences and similarities were there for all to see: this was still Afrobeat, with undisguised attacks on government corruption, but the music was geared toward listeners rather than players. For one thing, the tunes were around a third of the length of Fela's.

As Fela's health deteriorated in the 1990s, the clamor for new Kuti material increased. Eventually, Motown's Tabu label offered Femi a chance to step into his father's shoes. Fortunately, he was ready, with both a blazing band and strong material. The resulting album is a classic of jazz, funk, and rage, served in hard-hitting African rhythms, but the rough edges of Fela's mid-1970s rants have been streamlined to good effect.

In Africa, it went down a storm, though Motown's decision to close its offshoot meant Femi soon had to rethink his international career.

What Joe has to say about Femi Kuti by Femi Kuti:

Yeah man, I guess it's impossible to do this without writing about Fela Kuti, huh? This is a rare week that I really find no fault in the book for going down the obvious path, because in this case, there is no other path. To talk about the son, you must talk about the father.

I discovered Fela's story, or at least one small piece of it, during the early days of the Biden administration, which seems like forever ago (even 2021 Joe was despairingly accurate that trump part II was inevitable). "Zombie" is an insane song, absolutely fucking legendary, and four and a half years later, I still think about it all the time. The part about Fela Kuti being known to people like me as "a colorful eccentric" in this blurb caught me terribly off-guard, because I've spent a long time now taking this man's art very, very seriously.

I couldn't figure out anywhere to go past "Zombie," though, is the thing. The dude has a ton of albums, but I get a sense that a lot of them are comprised of two songs? Albeit two songs that are like 25-30 minutes total. After Zombie, I tried Expensive Shit from two years earlier, but it didn't hit the same way. I kinda stalled out at that point, but always had my antennas up and feeling shit out, to see if there was anywhere else I could take this journey. Then I saw another Kuti in the 1001 Albums book, and got excited again.

Let me tell you, gang... there is a lot to get excited about on this fucking album. It is WILD. I cannot believe that this fucking blurb decided to make a point that the songs are shorter here than on Fela Kuti's albums. Yeah, that's technically true, but also, there are a lot more of them, so that means Femi Kuti is like triple the length of Zombie. Occasionally, that might be a bad thing, the length, but not here. This album keeps my attention for the full 74 minutes. The tempo never lets up. Never once does it take a break, or feel like it's relaxing the energy. The pedal is on the metal the entire fucking time.

Something about the songs feel harder too. I guess the blurb uses the adjective "hard-hitting" for the rhythms, which is accurate and then some. The drummer(s) are bonkers on this thing. The saxophone is so deep and round and powerful. Femi seems desperate, which is a good way to sound when you're singing/hollering about the important shit, unity and courage and freedom. Afrobeat, man... there might be a day when I just decide to listen to nothing else.

It could just be that funk plus jazz as a combination is a good one for me. Then again, the Afrobeats chart on RYM is basically all Fela Kuti, so maybe it's that this artist—and now his spawn—scratch a particular itch for me. Listening to Femi do his thing here, it really is just a matter of him pulling together all the basic building blocks for the music that I love: quick tempo, complex rhythm, passionate lyrics, even more passionate brass and horns.

Gloria saw Femi Kuti in late July when he was performing in the 'burbs, and sent me a video. It's interesting watch that video now (and not because my phone is a janky piece of trash and shows each video with like eight pixels in it), because the clip shows him playing music that does not sound like anything on his self-titled album. A lot slower, careful, and a bit groovier. I am assuming that this is simply what 30 years does to a man, which is totally fine. But I'm telling you, man, you listen to this album right here, from the 33-year-old son of a legend, and you're gonna hear some fucking FIRE.

The familial connection is important, because it's part of the story. But it's not essential to enjoying the album. This is point-blank some crazy fun shit.