Femi Kuti: “I am Not Fela. I Don’t Even Want to be Fela.”

Greatness in any field reveals itself through unmistakable signs. Champions like Tiger Woods and George Weah have dominated their respective sports, while visionaries like Steve Jobs and Wole Soyinka redefined excellence in technology and literature. All these legends claimed their moments at the pinnacle of their career by weathering the inevitable storms that accompany any ascent to excellence. Yet among these icons, only a select few truly embody what it means to stand as unus inter pares — first among equals  — who rises above the rest.

 

The legendary Afrobeat artiste Femi Kuti is a prime example of this rare breed. His never-say-die attitude in reaching the zenith despite the turbulence he has faced on his road to becoming one of the greatest living Afrobeat acts, and even more so in the success of his recent 24-show tour across the USA and Canada, speaks to an artiste who has mastered the art of resilience.

 

At 63, Femi Anikulapo Kuti stands as a monument to the strength of artistic commitment. Where others might have buckled under the weight of betrayal—three key band members abandoning him mid-tour, forcing him to recruit and train American musicians in just four hours—Femi transformed crisis into triumph. The tour that was supposed to collapse instead became, according to him, some of the best performances of his four-decade career, as audiences called them.

 

Like those legendary figures who rise to their greatest heights when the pressure is most intense, Femi has spent his career turning obstacles into opportunities. From the early days when Nigerian radio stations banned his music, to breaking barriers as the first Nigerian to win major international awards, such as the Kora Award, his journey exemplifies what it means to maintain the highest standards across decades.

 

His latest album, “Journey Through Life,” released in April, captures this evolution perfectly. Born from personal struggle—his daughter’s illness weighing heavily on his heart—the album transforms pain into purpose, reflecting on family, love, and the realization that sometimes the most revolutionary act is working on yourself. “If I don’t have the power to do all the things I’ve done to change this thing, there is one thing I can change: myself. I can become a better father, a better musician,” he reflects.

 

Femi Kuti’s story is not only written in moments of resilience and philosophy; beyond the anecdotes of survival and reinvention, his legacy has been measured, recorded, and recognized on some of the world’s biggest stages. The numbers speak for themselves: 12 studio albums, multiple Grammy nominations, shared global stages with international superstars including D’Angelo, Wyclef Jean, and Jay-Z, and a touring legacy that spans continents. But statistics cannot capture the complexity of carrying forward his father, Fela Kuti‘s revolutionary Afrobeat legacy while refusing to be diminished by constant comparisons. Where others might see a burden, Femi Kuti has found the freedom to honor the past while boldly shaping the future.

 

From his base in Lagos, where he continues to run the New Afrika Shrine, Femi Kuti has watched African music explode globally while remembering when he and his contemporaries were breaking down doors without social media or streaming platforms, armed only with musical excellence and relentless determination. His perspective spans generations, offering insights into both the historical struggles that paved the way and the contemporary landscape where Afrobeats—the mainstream African pop genre, not to be confused with his father Fela’s Afrobeat—dominates international charts.

 

In this exclusive conversation with The Nollywood Reporter, Femi Kuti talks about his deeply personal latest album “Journey Through Life,” the betrayals that nearly destroyed his recent 24-show across Canada and the United States but ultimately strengthened his resolve, his thoughts on carrying forward the Afrobeat legacy without living in his father’s shadow, the historical context of African music’s global journey, and why he believes the most sustainable form of revolution begins with working on yourself.

 

TNR: Your latest album, Journey Through Life, is both personal and politically charged. What inspired the themes you explore in this album?

Femi Kuti: Time. It was a challenging time for me, but I was already due to make the album. It was essential for me to address the political issues I discussed on the album, but I also felt the need to reflect on the values that have guided me throughout my life.

 

Journey Through Life is about family and love. At the time, my daughter was very sick, and I was feeling deeply sad. The album became a way for me to express how much I loved and missed her, while also conveying the general message that family is important. It’s about doing what you love, keeping family close, and living life meaningfully; otherwise, life becomes complicated.

 

For example, in track 9, “Work on Myself”, I was reflecting. You know, people often complain that I don’t mention political leaders by name. But when I look back at my career, I have done that so many times. When Babangida was in power, I called him out in my song, “Traitors of Africa”. During Abacha’s regime, I sang “Stubborn Problem”. Even when Jonathan was the president, I protested against the fuel price hike in Ojota.

 

However, the Ojota protest is always twisted against me, as though I were part of a plot to topple Jonathan. Do I look like a coup plotter? Why would I team up with the opposition to overthrow a government? To be clear, what really happened is that some NGOs came to me, saying they wanted to protest the fuel hike. I supported them because I believed PDP had been in power since 1999 — eight years of Obasanjo, three years of Yar’Adua, then Jonathan — and they had more than enough time to fix our refineries. If they had done the right thing, nobody would have opposed them.

 

At Ojota, I gave a speech about how bad Nigeria had been since my youth, but people only show that clip and use it against me. They never show the part where I sang “Wey Our Money”, demanding accountability from leaders like Obasanjo and Tinubu. So, how could I have been part of a Tinubu campaign if I was criticizing him at the same rally? The truth is those accusing me also have their own negative agendas.

 

Look at Jonathan’s government, fighting corruption, yet giving someone like Diepreye Alamieyeseigha a presidential pardon. If you support that and then abuse me, then obviously you’re part of the problem.

 

Also, people often compare me to my father, saying I’m afraid to call names. But I’ve just given you examples where I did. The question is: what progress did name-calling ever bring? My father called names, Obasanjo, countless times, yet people still voted him in with a landslide. Did Nigeria get better because he called names? No. So, who is the hypocrite: me or those critics?

 

All of this made me think. Even when I look at people like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Marcus Garvey, Thomas Sankara, my father Fela, or his mother, the world still seems to be in a worse place, and Africa in an even worse position. So, if I don’t have the power to do all the things I’ve done to change this thing, there is one thing I can change: myself. I can become a better father, a better musician. That’s the inspiration behind the track “Work on Myself”. If it inspires people, and if each of us starts working on ourselves, maybe slowly but surely the world will become a better place. That was my thought process in creating this album — clear and intentional.

 

You recently completed a 24-show tour across Canada and the United States. How was that experience, and how did international audiences respond to your music and its messages?

Coming from Nigeria, after four decades, to still fill halls is not easy. It’s very difficult, but we managed to do it. The tour was successful in the end, but it was also one of the most difficult experiences of my career.

 

Three of my musicians betrayed my trust and absconded. They left after the ninth show in Washington. Getting them visas was already a huge struggle. Two of them, Dami Olubunmi and Michael Oguntajoye, were initially refused visas, and I had to write letters and call on diplomatic friends to convince the Canadian and American authorities that they would not run. Eventually, the visas were issued and then they ran.

 

This broke me because, after four decades of travelling the world, my reputation with embassies is clean. They know I would never do visa fraud or apply for someone who is not in my band. They give me the visas, not the band directly, because they know I always return. But then, my own band members stab me in the back. How do I go back to an embassy and request to take new Nigerian musicians with me? These betrayals don’t only hurt me; they make it harder for every young, upcoming Nigerian band to be trusted when they want to travel.

 

At one point, I was forced to recruit American musicians and train them in just four hours before the next show. Imagine how tedious that was. In Washington and New York, we even had to perform with two horn players instead of four because the trombonist, Tunde Akran, also ran away an hour before the show. My horn line was thin, and it affected the music. Their excuse was that someone in the band was “stressing their lives,” but they claimed to love me. If you love me, why would you abandon me, knowing that if the tour collapsed, I would be the one responsible for all the debts, not the person stressing you?

 

Financially, the risk was huge. Just to rent the tour bus was expensive. Flight tickets for the band alone cost about 40 million naira, not to mention visas, hotels, internal flights, and per diems for food, which they received daily. They were not underpaid. My band, The Positive Force, is one of the best-paid and most well-traveled bands from Nigeria. They’ve been everywhere. Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, America, Canada. Some even had five-year Canadian and Chinese visas through me. So there was absolutely no reason to betray me.

 

The only law in my band is simple: if you want to leave, just tell me. Come and say, “Mr. Kuti, I want to leave.” I will thank you for your years of service, bless you, and even write you a letter of recommendation. Only one person in all my years has ever done this. The rest lie and sabotage me. People say I should seize their passports, but the passport is the property of the Nigerian government, not mine. I cannot be preaching Pan-Africanism, sincerity, and patriotism, and then turn around to act like a dictator.

 

At one point during the tour, I broke down crying on stage. I didn’t know how we would finish. But somehow, by the grace of God and my ancestors, we pulled through, and the tour ended successfully. My family knew what I was going through and, when I came back, everyone was just happy we had survived it.

 

People don’t realize the sacrifices. If I didn’t care about my country and my people, why would I build the Shrine? Why would I keep ticket prices so low, sometimes free, sometimes 2,000 naira, the cheapest shows in Nigeria? Why wouldn’t I just use my British passport to “japa”? That’s not my training. My training is to love and believe in Nigeria.

 

To make matters worse, those same musicians who absconded had not even played on my last record. They couldn’t perform in the studio, but I still paid them and put their names on the album. That’s the kind of person I am. Yet, they repaid me with betrayal.

 

So yes, the international audiences responded very well to the music and the message. The tour itself was successful. But, behind the scenes, it was the most difficult tour of my life.

 

With all that happened on tour, especially band members absconding, do you think this experience will make it harder for you to trust people who are genuinely committed?

Don’t worry, I’m not even trusting other people. You know what? About 15 years ago, because a lot of bands in Africa would collect money from Europe and then not turn up, Europe decided they would no longer produce any tours for Africa. So I’ve been producing my own tours for about 15 to 18 years now. That means I have to take the loan, I have to pay for the visa, I have to pay for everything. If we don’t turn up, it falls on my head. Because nobody outside wants to take that risk with Africa again. They know this, it’s a common fact in my band. Anybody in my band will tell you this, because what I do is open policy. So they cannot deny the truth. They know that when they do that, they are destroying me. But we thank God, they cannot.

 

Were there moments on tour that surprised you, either in audience reaction or in your own reflections on the songs?

Ah, many moments. Moments like I’ve already explained to you, that one shocked me. Moments when we managed to pull ourselves together, because those of us that stayed, we had to pull ourselves together, because everybody was broken, everybody was broken.

 

So we had a little meeting and said, we can’t let this destroy our own dreams. We need to gather ourselves, forget the incident, and give the best show of our life, night after night.

I’m happy they listened to me. I’m happy the audience reacted so positively like never before. Some venues, you see people crying. The show was that great. And people in the first few shows could not believe the band had only been playing together for four hours before the first show after they ran away.

 

For instance, people did not believe that, in New York, that wasn’t my complete band, because everybody put 100% in the effort to ensure that those who absconded were not missed, and not give them the joy to say, yes, we destroyed this band.

 

So those of us that remained, the keyboardist, guitarist, the baritonist, the dancers, everybody was wowed. And those people that had watched the band said this is the best performance they have seen of the band over the years. So the shows were so amazing. I’ve come back and I am so tired, and I understand why because we put so much inside, so much energy in every gig, night after night. Traveling night after night, back to back.

 

You know, I thought it was even five weeks. So I went to check the calendar, because I was wondering why my son, Made Kuti, kept saying one month. So I now realize that, truly, it was one month because I lost count of the days. Lost count of everything. I didn’t even know. I was just going, going, going.

 

So despite everything that happened, you were also finding joy in the experience?

Yeah, at the end because the band was on a high. You know, the Americans that joined the band, everybody was so happy. Everybody was looking forward to the next show. You see, it was now becoming a band. I didn’t think we could reach that level, and we did.

 

Touring extensively can be exhausting. How do you maintain the energy and emotional intensity of your live performances night after night?

It’s what I enjoy doing. Everybody asks me where I get the energy from and, honestly, I don’t know. I love doing what I do. Maybe if I knew the source, God would take it away, so I don’t even want to know. I don’t ask questions, I just pray. No matter how tired I am, I pray that God gives me the strength to make each night better than the last. And when the show is over, I’m just grateful.

 

I know I have to rest, so I eat, take my shower, freshen up, and get to bed as quickly as possible, because the next audience doesn’t care that I had a show the night before. They want the same energy. You can’t give excuses. You have to be professional.

 

In the early days of my career, this was very hard to adapt to. Sometimes I would lose my voice, and I didn’t understand my limits; it was rough. But over the years, you learn. You learn on the road that when everybody else is laughing and partying, you need to be sleeping. There are things others can do that you simply cannot. For someone like me, the answer is always “No.” No late-night gisting, no distractions.

 

It has taken me four decades to reach this level. There were times in the past when I felt like dying, because it was embarrassing to step on stage without energy or voice after giving too much the previous night. So I had to learn how to give 100% every night without burning out. That means preparing even before the tour begins. One month before hitting the road, I’m already training and conditioning myself, because touring is like a battlefield; you must prepare.

 

On the road, you also prepare for the unexpected. The bus must depart and arrive on time. If you’re flying, you can’t miss a flight. You can’t miss soundcheck. If they say 3 o’clock, it has to be 3 o’clock. You can’t say, “I’m tired, give me 30 minutes.” No. The competition is high; hundreds of bands are on the road. One bad night can ruin everything, because word spreads fast. People will say, “This guy messed up yesterday, don’t book him again.” That can destroy your reputation, sometimes forever. So you can’t afford to slip. You need to be proactive, disciplined, and always on top of your game. Timing is everything.

 

Carrying forward your family’s Afrobeat legacy is a unique responsibility. How do you stay true to your Fela’s vision while evolving your own sound?

That was very easy, by respecting Fela, first of all. When you respect Fela and you respect yourself, you already know the truth: I am not Fela. I cannot be Fela. I don’t even want to be Fela. But I cannot explain how much I love my father.

 

So, when people say things like, “You can never be like him,” I find it very stupid. We are not in a boxing match. Where is the competition? He’s my father. From the very beginning, people have always compared me to him, as if I was fighting him to be better. I am Femi Anikulapo Kuti. Whatever I achieve in life, if I succeed, Fela takes the credit. And if I fail, it also falls on his head. Imagine if I was a drug addict under the bridge, people would still say, “That’s Fela’s son.”

 

So, those who get angry when I do well, or when Seun does well, or when the family is doing well, and try to stir up competition among us are just being petty. Nonsense. There is no competition. Have you ever heard people compare Ziggy Marley to Bob Marley like that? Have you ever heard anyone say Bob Marley’s children will never be better than him? I haven’t. So why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we bring our own down instead of celebrating the beauty of the legacy?

 

Why would I even want to be Fela? If God wanted me to be Fela, He would have made me Fela. Instead, God made me Femi. So, to tell me to behave like Fela is impossible. And besides, what if I had died before Fela, would that mean I lived my whole life just waiting to inherit something I never got to see? That would have been a wasted life.

 

Even with my own children, I don’t teach them to be like me. I tell them: be happy. Find your joy. Because your pain will be your pain. If someone slaps you, I can only say “sorry,” but you alone will feel the sting. So you must find your own happiness. I understand the weight of the legacy, and I’ve always worked as hard as possible to live up to it to the best of my ability. But when critics say, “You can never be better than your father,” that’s such a disgraceful and small-minded way of thinking. He is my father. If you tell me I cannot be better than your father, that makes sense.

 

And look at it another way: if my son, Made, does not become better than me, I will be very sad. That would mean I have failed as a father. Is it not our culture and tradition that a father prays for his child to be better than him? So, if I am not better than Fela, then what people are really saying, without realizing it, is that Fela failed. And that is the man they idolize.

 

Instead of dragging us with these comparisons, people should see the beauty: that his children are striving, that we have maintained the legacy while also building our own. Because I still have my own responsibilities—my family, my children, and their school fees. Legacy doesn’t pay bills. I must work; I must live my own life. I have my own path to follow.

 

Compared to your Fela’s era of long compositions, many of your recent songs are shorter. What informed this change? Was it artistic choice, or adapting to modern listening habits?

It was a choice. Look, let me tell you this. Only Fela could do what Fela did. Fela got to a stage in his career where he didn’t care if the radio stations played him. He didn’t even want them to play him. But if I start to behave like Fela in that way, is that not already a blueprint for failure?

 

Do you know how many times they beat Fela? His mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, was killed. So the way Fela felt, his pain, I can only sympathize. I can never know it fully. That was his life, his decision, why he did what he did. We, as his children, could only support him. But if I say I want to do everything like Fela, how? It’s not possible.

 

And remember, Fela didn’t even start with long songs. In 1969, ’70, ’71, he was playing three- to four-minute tracks. For example, tracks like “Jeun Ko Ku (Chop and Quench),” “Alu Jon Jonki Jon,” “Na Fight-O,” “My Lady Frustration” were the songs that brought him into the limelight. They were not political, and they were short.

 

It was only later that the music stretched into 15, 30, even 45 minutes. But how do you want me to start from where he ended? It’s not possible. Nobody would ever play me. That means I would never have written a song like “Beng Beng Beng,” or “Sorry Sorry,” which I wrote in 1996 and released in 1998 on my album, Shoki Shoki. That album was one of the best to emerge from Africa. It won all the awards of those days. There was no song bigger than “Beng Beng Beng” at the time.

 

Beyond the evolution of your music, you’ve also received major recognition—Grammys, Kora, and World Music Awards. How do you look back on these achievements in your career?

After the Shoki Shoki album, I went on to do Fight to Win, my first Grammy-nominated album with Jaguar Wright. I even did a cover of Fela’s “Water” with D’Angelo. By 2000, 2001, I was already opening doors for Nigeria. I was in conversations with Wyclef Jean, Jay-Z, Alicia Keys. In 1999, we did a 21-country African tour before the Kora Awards. But people don’t talk about all this.

 

The Kora Awards then were the biggest in Africa. Nigerians had tried for years to win, and I was the first. I won “Best West African Artiste” and “Best African Artiste” in Sun City, South Africa, in front of Mandela and Michael Jackson. When I came back to Nigeria, thousands met me at the airport. That album also won Nigeria’s first World Music Award. I was the first Nigerian to play at the Nobel Prize ceremony, with the North Korean president in attendance. But they don’t talk about it.

 

I don’t like saying these things because it feels like boasting. But sometimes, you must remind people. And also remember: my father never won any of those awards and he didn’t care. So I’m not saying it to boast, because awards don’t define you as a man. You can win awards and still be a lousy person.

 

For me, it’s about my family, my band, my work. If you win, good, you celebrate. If you don’t, it doesn’t take away your greatness. Bob Marley never won those awards, yet he is still one of the greatest.

 

So after four decades, I’m still here. Still touring, still performing. That’s what matters. In October, I’ll go on another short tour, and next year I already have a full tour lined up. By God’s grace, I’ll be 64 and still doing the same thing I’ve done all my life.

 

African music is receiving unprecedented global recognition. Has this influenced the way you create and share your music?

No. Also, to make it clear, African music had already been gaining prominence globally a long time before many of the people doing it now were born. Where do you want to put somebody like Miriam Makeba, making waves in those days? Hugh Masekela, Salif Keita, Youssou N’Dour, Baaba Maal, and even Mory Kanté, who had one of the biggest hits in the world with “Yeke Yeke.” Every single nightclub played that song. Probably the only African song that maybe did as well was my song “Beng Beng Beng.”

 

Everywhere you turned, Africans were already touring. So people had already opened doors. Fela had opened doors. King Sunny Ade, too, had gone on tours from Nigeria. Fela was the first. It started with Berlin in ’79, at Philharmonic Hall. Do you know what Philharmonic Hall was in those days? The biggest jazz hall in Berlin, Germany. Fela played there. Then Fela’s next tour was, I think, 1980 or 1981. Nobody was touring from Africa then with a big band. Fela travelled with 73 people to Berlin. Fela used to travel with 45 people from Nigeria.

 

So, the way you see it, African music’s global impact didn’t start today — it’s been building for a long time?

No, not just today. It’s not possible. How did my song “Beng Beng Beng” become one of the biggest songs back then? Am I Puerto Rican? I’m African. At that time, there was no song bigger than “Beng Beng Beng.” All the discos were playing it, the radio was playing it, it was everywhere. Same thing with “Truth Don Die” and the Shoki Shoki album, that album was the biggest African album of its time.

 

There was even a period when we did 47 shows in five weeks. We would spend at least six months of the year touring outside Nigeria. There’s nowhere in France, Germany, Switzerland that my band hasn’t performed. So why would anyone want to erase those facts from history? Just because people are making waves today doesn’t mean nobody was doing it before. We were already doing it when there was no internet.

 

Look at Mory Kanté, is he from the moon? Angelique Kidjo, too. She’s African, and she has five Grammys. Baaba Maal, Youssou N’Dour, Senegalese music was extremely powerful. I even met many of these people on the road. But my band, The Positive Force, had to fight our way up. At festivals, we would often start on the smaller stages and work for years before breaking into the main stages.

 

My first tour was in 1988, the headline in the paper read: “Femi Kuti, Star of the Night.” That was after performing with Jimmy Cliff. We used that article to start booking shows across Europe. By 1990/91, I broke into America. My first Nigerian hit was “Wonder Wonder” in 1994, and then “Beng Beng Beng” became an international hit in 1998. By 2000, I had “Fight to Win.” Since then, I’ve released 12 studio albums.

 

If I’m still touring now, how could I do that if I wasn’t known? If I wasn’t already established? And remember, there was a time Nigerian radio stations banned my music. It wasn’t just “Beng Beng Beng,” they banned me because of songs like “Sorry Sorry,” “Truth Don Die,” “Victim of Life,” “Black Man Know Yourself.” Those were openly political songs, and they didn’t want them on air. They know why. But they can’t erase history.

 

How do international audiences or foreign countries appreciate, and support music differently compared to Nigeria?

International audiences appreciate the instrumentation, the hard work, and the talent that goes into it. They can recognize a hardworking band when they see one, and that’s why Afrobeat continues to connect abroad. In Europe and America, there’s a touring culture, audiences understand and value live music, and hardworking musicians can always find their crowd. However, even there, things are changing; festivals that once received substantial government grants are now losing that support, making it harder for bands to tour as they did in the 1980s, 1990s, or early 2000s.

 

Looking inward, how would you describe Nigeria’s own touring and live music culture over the years?

Nigeria once had a thriving culture of live shows and tours. In the 90s, for instance, Benson & Hedges sponsored massive nationwide tours that many bands joined, and, in earlier decades, Fela himself toured extensively. The National Stadium was a hub for sports and culture. It hosted the All-Africa Games, featured basketball courts, a swimming pool, and trained Olympic athletes. But, over time, corruption, poor maintenance, and neglect destroyed much of that infrastructure. Instead of maintaining what we had, we abandoned it, built new facilities, and then spoiled those as well. Even railway lines and bridges have been vandalized for scrap. This destructive cycle has crippled Nigeria’s cultural and touring infrastructure. And when government leadership is faulty, the whole system suffers, unlike Europe and America, where there’s still an organized culture of touring, even if it’s getting more difficult now due to funding cuts.

 

What do you think the government should prioritize to improve Nigeria generally, so that things like music and touring can even matter?

That’s the least of our problems. Life is too hard here. People can’t afford rent; people can’t pay hospital bills. Even the President does not trust the hospitals in this country; that speaks volumes. Do you think the President of France will go to England for medical care? Never. You won’t hear of such in Europe or America, only in Africa. And yet, our leaders have always had the funds to fix our hospitals. We have some of the best doctors in the world, so why are our hospitals still in such a dilapidated state, unless they are private ones?

 

Looking at the new generation of Afropop artistes, are there any young musicians you’d be excited to collaborate with, and why?

For now, I don’t want to collaborate with anybody. But what I would love to see is more young people learning to play musical instruments. That’s the only way you’re going to sustain your career, by learning and playing instruments properly, and develop a well-rounded musicianship skills.