HS in Nigeria | Afrobeat star Seun Kuti arrested after HS interview in Lagos – Finland visit in jeopardy

Ikeja, Nigeria.

All is well still in the week after May Day, when the afrobeat star Seun Kuti will receive Helsingin Sanomat at the practice facilities of the legendary Egypt 80 band in Ikeja in the Lagos metropolitan area in Nigeria.

“Sorry if my state of alertness is not maximal. I have the same eyes after last night’s party,” he laughs.

The drummer starts a gently rolling beat, and the percussionist and two bassists join in. Bright riffing comes out of the guitar, and the young trumpeter speaks and blows while learning his own stems.

This is Afrobeat, which combines African folk music and Western music, for example funk and jazz.

Seun Kuti takes off his shirt in the hot and humid practice room and sings for a few minutes, but he is not satisfied.

“Play the damn parts right. Remember that we have a European tour coming up!”

Now the tour is in jeopardy.

Over the weekend, a video appeared on the internet, based on which Seun Kuti got very angry with the police on the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos.

According to the video, Kuti slapped the policeman with his open palm and spoke to him angrily.

According to the Punch publication Seun Kuti himself had hit the police car. The star seems to have a different opinion about this.

The police followed Kuti to his home, where Kuti allegedly apologized to the police and paid 12,000 naira, or about 25 euros, to repair the sheet metal damage.

However, the police reported the incident and an arrest warrant was issued. The site of the HS interview was raided, as was the New Afrika Shrine, a concert venue run by the Kuti family.

On Monday morning, Kuti voluntarily appeared at the police station, where he was handcuffed. He spent the night between Monday and Tuesday in prison.

Violent resistance to the police can result in fines of, for example, half a million naira, or about a thousand euros, which Kuti, who has an international career, would certainly be able to handle.

But the punishment can also be half a year in prison.

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“Everything genuine comes from Africa!”

Let’s get back for a while to the training camp and to the day when everything was still good.

Seun Kuti was looking forward to the European tour with the Egypt 80 band through Spain and France to Salojazz on May 26 and to the main stage of the Maailma kyläsä festival in Helsinki on May 27.

Previously, Seun Kuti has performed in Finland, for example, at Pori Jazz, Juhlaviikkoin Huvila and the Savoy theater.

“The Nordic countries have always been a strong market for me. Now is the time to get to you after the pandemic.”

During the pandemic, he also contracted the coronavirus.

“It was ok because it was a genuine African omikron variant. After all, everything genuine comes from Africa!”

Egypt 80 was once Seun’s father Fela Kutin band. Fela Kuti (1938–1997) was the developer of Nigerian Afrobeat and one of the greatest legends of African music.

The group still practices in the same space as in Fela’s time in the “Republic of Kalakuta”, as Fela Kuti called his home.

Fela Kuti lived in the time of military dictatorships, but dreamed of his own, republican territory.

Today, Nigeria is a democracy with all its problems. Next to the training camp is the Kalakuta museum founded in honor of Fela. Seun Kuti grew up and learned to be a musician in the same house.

“There was a nursery for girls and that for boys. This was my father’s study and bedroom.”

On the roof terrace, Seun Kuti wraps himself in sweet treats.

“Felahan was a direct family man to me, unlike my siblings who are more than 20 years older. In my childhood, he was at home whenever he wasn’t performing.”

Fela Kuti died of AIDS in 1997. His Afrobeat legacy lives on today with Seun and his older brother who is more than 20 years older Femi Kutin in music. Also the younger Afrobeat generation From Burna Boy To Wizkid samples Fela’s music for his own clearly more commercial production.

Seun Kuti is closer to his father’s expression than today’s youth, but the expression has condensed.

The first part of Fela’s father’s songs was often instrumental music, the second part sung. The entirety of one song often lasted one half of an LP as a recording version. At a gig, one song could last for example 45 minutes.

Seun Kut’s tactic is to make the recordings more compact, although in concerts the songs can still stretch to the dimensions familiar from his father’s music.

Grammy nominated Black Times – album’s title track is a good example of this. Carlos Santanta a recording made with takes less than five minutes.

But a concert recording of the same song made at the Montreux Jazz Festival lasts almost 19 minutes.

“There are only 3-4 musicians playing in the Egypt 80 band, who were already in my father Fela’s band. When this connection is broken, I will change the name of my band”, Seun anticipates.

The interview is interrupted for a moment when he rubs his ears and comments on the practice of the Egypt 80 band.

“Only one of the three female singers sang that part correctly!”

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“The colonial power still continues.”

IS so it’s time to get back to training. But before that, Seun Kuti says that he also intends to become a political leader.

He is reviving his father’s Movement of the People into a political party with a “socialist-progressive” program.

“I am a socialist, but a Marxist only in the sense that Karl Marx was influenced by African communalism when writing his theories. I don’t bring learning structures made for European use to Africa.”

Nigeria gained independence in 1960, and oil has made it Africa’s largest economy. Today, the country’s elite is extremely wealthy, but the poor are largely forgotten.

“We have more schools than during the British colonial rule, but less education. We have more police, judges and prisons and less justice. We have more wealth than in 1960, but also much more poverty.”

So was the British administration more efficient?

“No, the colonial rule continues with the cooperation of our rich elite and foreign companies!”

The interview the surprise arrest that happened after is now confusing Seun Kut’s fans in Nigeria and abroad.

Fela Kuti was once repeatedly in trouble with the authorities for opposing dictators. But the video that ended up on the news broadcasts would suggest that Seun Kuti approached the police on his own initiative after a possible sheet metal crash and slapped him with his open palm.

On Tuesday, Kuti – and many European concert organizers – were waiting for the 24-hour time limit from the arrest to expire. After that, the judge had to outline whether there are grounds for continuing the detention before a possible trial.

“It’s exciting, but at least at the moment we believe that the matter will be resolved in time,” comments the communications manager of the Maailma kyläsä festival Nelli Korpi.

The World in the Village Festival In Suvilahti, Helsinki, on Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 May. In addition to Seun Kut’s performance planned for Saturday, the festival’s program includes, among others, Toya Delazy, Liraz, Yeboyah and Jesse Markin.