Abami Eda, 10 Years On

Fela Anikulapo-Kuti died in the same year as Diana, Princess of Wales. A million people people turned out for the Afrobeat legend's funeral in Lagos in 1997. 10 years on, and the irreplaceable Fela is much missed, by ordinary Nigerians and an ever growing legion of Afrobeat fans all over the world.

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To mark the 2nd August anniversary of Fela's death, the UK Guardian published this piece. Each of Fela's 3 famous offspring gets a mention (usually with pieces written by European journalists, Femi Kuti hogs the whole space; but here, Alex Hannaford had clearly done her research). Seun Anikulapo is interviewed at the original site of Fela's Shrine, then it's off to Femi's base at the New Afrika Shrine.

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And as for Yeni, here's what she has to say about her late dad

"My father was a very charismatic person," she says. "For someone like me, it was easy to follow his ideology because, as a black person, he made me proud. Fela's father - my grandfather - was a pastor, but he was still a radical; he was very outspoken. And my great-grandfather was responsible for taking Christianity to Abeokuta [a city north of Lagos]. He used music to get people to believe, so in his way he was a radical as well. And my grandmother was an activist. So we come from a long line of revolutionaries.

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"I would love my father to be remembered for his words and his music. He was a brilliant man. If only the government at that time had listened, I doubt that Nigeria would be where it is today. We would be ahead of all the other African countries. The things he used to sing about are 100 times worse now, and religion in Nigeria is an epidemic - it is 7km from here to my house and I have counted 58 churches. Who are the congregation? Poor people. But the vicar's suits cost $5,000 to $10,000.

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"Fela would have been disillusioned with Nigeria today," she adds, "but not surprised."

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Yeni's eyes stray towards the tiny TV on her dressing-room table. It shows Obasanjo handing over the presidency to Umaru Yar'Adua, and various senators and governors being sworn into office. Obasanjo's daughter, Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, is being sworn in as a senator in Ogun State. "How did she become a senator?" Yeni asks rhetorically, incredulous. "It's like Chelsea Clinton taking office because of her father. We Nigerians are gluttons for punishment."

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Nice to know Fela's offspring are still telling it straight. But we always knew that...

• Fela Anikulapo-Kuti may still be relatively unknown in the West as the Guardian article says, but the Fela-thon held at the Barbican, London in 2004 certainly did its best to change that. Reproduced here are some of the programmes that accompanied the 2004 Felafest in London.
• And the BBC has been remembering the Fela years too.

Tidbits

'Perf4ming his greatest hits 4 the last time' - or so the hype says. "You can't handle me," Prince reportedly told thousands of his fans in London's O2 Arena (formerly the ill-fated Millennium Dome) last week. It was the start of the musician's 21 day residency at the venue, and there's been nothing but blanket praise for His Purpleness in the papers. London's never seen anything like it. Prince played from 8.30pm till 3am, and he's charging only £31.21p for tickets - 31.21 is the title of his new album, which he's giving away free with newspapers. And this blogger can only watch in awe via the news reports. A historical Pop Culture event, and I've got no ticket!
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And here's something that might interest the poet Esiaba Irobi, whose recently published collection of poetry is titled, Why I Don't Like Philip Larkin. In today's Observer, a little snippet about just how much thought Larkin gave to his image. Published photos had to 'air-brush' him to achieve these desired results: "I am not bald, I have only one chin, my waist is concave." He who was all of the above!

In the wake of 2 great directors of European cinema - Ingmar Bergman & Michelangelo Antonioni - dying on the same day(!) - a gently amusing little piece in Jasper Gerard's column about when the famous die all at once. CS Lewis and another famous fella were short-changed in death and didn't get the kind of obituaries they deserved in the immediate aftermath because they had the misfortune of dying on the same day as JFK. And very appropriate for funnymen, due hilarity about Frankie Howerd (of the Carry On movies) and Benny Hill dying at once. There is still confusion about which of the two actually died first. Enough about death...

This blog doesn't care much for Britney Spears, Robbie Williams or Courtney Love (Love says her mouth is 'wonky' but what did she expect, with all that needless surgery? Don't famous people get embarrassed? Some of them only vaguely resemble the people they were when they first started out) - but I have more time for Alec Baldwin right now perhaps than his ex-wife Kim Basinger does. Still, since this is a blog, I didn't miss this piece (left) about how 'the other half blogs'.