11th June, 2010
A performance of “Fela!,†the acclaimed Broadway show on the life of Nigerian superstar Fela Anikulapo Kuti, makes for the kind of culture clash rarely seen on the Great White Way. And thatâ€
During intermission at one performance this spring, two women asked whether a Nigerian writer sitting nearby had seen the show before, because he seemed to know all the lyrics. The women, regular theatergoers whoâ€
Yet by showâ€
Thirteen years after his AIDS-related death in 1997, Fela is enjoying a high tide of exposure. The musical, which garnered 11 nominations for this yearâ€
Knitting Factory Records has bought rights to the Fela catalog and is reissuing 45 titles, in batches, with the original artwork. It is also releasing, this week, the cast album of the Broadway show. Separately, a Fela biopic is in the works from Focus Features, directed by Steve McQueen and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Fela-themed conferences and exhibitions are proliferating. A London show last year presented work by Lemi Ghariokwu, who made much of Felaâ€
Fela parties, Fela club nights, and Fela T-shirts are common in multiethnic bohemia from Brooklyn to Berlin. The culture has mushroomed from an underground Fela scene long nurtured by Antibalas, DJ Rich Medina, and others.
As it does each night on Broadway, the Fela resurgence challenges newcomers to enter a world where African politics and spirituality intersect with themes of black liberation, against the liquid grooves and hypnotic rhythms of Afrobeat. And it challenges insiders to share their icon with new listeners, viewers, and investors, some of whom might seem to embody the global capitalist forces that Fela songs like “I.T.T.†or “Colonial Mentality†decried.
Would the real Fela — charismatic, cantankerous, acerbic — have approved this state of affairs? Ghariokwu, the artist who was close to him in the 1970s, says yes.
“He would like it,†Ghariokwu says. “Because Fela loved to be celebrated. He liked to be noticed. Heâ€
Ghariokwu is one of many Fela associates who have seen the musical at the Eugene Oâ€
“I cried,†he says. “I loved how our legacy was projected. Itâ€
Members of Felaâ€
Soon after the off-Broadway run, lead actor Ngaujah, who is part Sierra Leonean, part African-American, visited Nigeria. Seun Kuti later spent a week in New York interacting with cast and crew.
Ngaujah, whose tour de force performance anchors the show (he alternates with Kevin Mambo), says he checked in with Felaâ€
In the Fela cultural economy, bringing the man back to life serves different purposes depending on whom one asks.
Producer Hendel, who imagined the play, says he discovered Fela about nine years ago. “I found it totally overwhelming,†he says. “The music was so glorious and sensual and complicated, and the lyrics were so poetic and truthful.â€
For him, investing in Fela was part business proposition, part labor of love — and also a challenge to the conventional culture of Broadway. “I thought, here would be something unfamiliar but thrilling,†Hendel says. “Letâ€
Measured by critical reception and award nominations, he has succeeded. For months the buzz around the show has been palpable. Celebrity sightings are common. And after Ahmir “?uestlove†Thompson of hip-hop band the Roots gave a glowing endorsement to the off-Broadway version, Jay-Z and Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith came on as investors.
But the bottom line is dragging, Hendel says. “Itâ€
Hendel is an investor in Knitting Factory, which explains why the label licensed Felaâ€
The label manages the Fela Kuti identity on Facebook and Twitter, mixing social exhortations, Fela quotes, and marketing messages. “Part of our game plan is creating a Fela Nation that we can communicate with,†Long says.
For a critical take on Fela— who, after all, was temperamental, promiscuous, usually high, sometimes violent — it helps to step out of what Nigerian writer Teju Cole calls the “Fela-industrial complex†and into activist circles where the man is celebrated, but scrutinized.
“You can glorify to the extent that the personâ€
Nevertheless, she enjoyed the musical. “Itâ€
For Ngaujah, any narrative simplification is bound to recede once a new listener digs into the music and history.
“If we presented a defanged Fela — which I donâ€