SEGUN SMART

For Fela, my siblings & I have reconciledBy SEGUN AJIBOYE
•Femi KutiPhoto

Femi, first son of Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti turned 45 yesterday.Though yet to match his dad’s fame, Femi at 45 is already a musician of note. If anything, he has proven to be a chip off the old block. Like father like son, Femi in an exclusive interview with Sunday Sun weekend exhibited the same old trait – yabis - which the late Abami Eda was known for. How age works wonders! Same Femi that years earlier was at war with the media, turned friendly, answering all the questions without bathing an eyelid.Indeed he spoke about himself, his kids, the Kutis, 10th anniversary of Fela’s death, sex and marriage, and so on. He was not done until he had a word for the new government in Aso Rock.Excerpts:
How does it feel being 45 years old?It is a great feeling to be 45. I feel great and I give thanks to the almighty.
What’s been happening to your marriage?I am not married and I won’t be getting married again. I don’t have to be married to have children. Let me tell you something, marriage is not because you love each other. If they love each other, then they should make sure they are responsible for their children and make sure they are educated and to provide for them. The mothers, too, have to perform their own duties. Aside that, how many marriages last these days? It is not about marriage.
We know you have kidsI have seven children. Three of them - Made, Tosin and Dupe - are my biological children while the four are my adopted children.
So how are the kids faring, given that you are a very busy dad?The Kutis are not known to be failures, so Made(his first son) will never be a failure. In our history, we have never failed. We might revolt against religion, against injustice or education. But in terms of success in our different endeavours, we’ve always been successful. Though we may not be millionaires because we are not corrupt, we would always be successful.
You don’t mind if I ask about your siblings?I see them once in a while. Seun and Kunle come here, but they see more of Yeni than me because I am always on the stage when they visit. Yeni is the mother of the family. We’ve had our differences and I have taken my firm steps on the directions I am going. They either come along or fall by the way side. I cannot afford to compromise because of my security and that of my son who is going to inherit the throne of the dynasty. We are Africans, and if they know they are younger siblings they should behave as such. If they are rude to me, which some of them have done in the past, I would not take it from them.It is 10 years of being abused in the newspapers. It is 10 years of traumatic experience. I have been suffering in my heart, asking questions why people are turning against me. Why are they comparing Seun to me? So when I realized the political aspect of what they were doing it dawned on me that these people don’t love Fela; that they want to ruin our lives. I knew I had to take a firm stand. I won’t compromise on that firm stand again. If anybody is rude to me, I will train my own son to be rude to the person because I won’t be rude to any of my uncles. However, thank God that we have settled everything and he (Seun) has apologized to me.
How about Yeni, your elder sister? Yes, she is the eldest in the family, and she is happy and ably doing those things. But let me tell you something about her, she is dong it because she is the eldest child. It is not because she wants to show off. She is very African and I am very proud of her. She has taken a lot of pressure off my back. It gives me a lot of time to concentrate on my music and to make money on the international market. If I fail to groom myself to meet the international standard, I would be losing a lot because I cannot make anything here. So, while she handles the home front like the mother, I can concentrate on making money. Yeni was meant to be a man, but the creator made to be a woman because if she were a man Nigeria would probably be in a lot of trouble. She is a carbon copy of Fela and she has more of Fela in her than me.
In a matter of months it would be 10 years that Fela passed on. What’s in the offing? I would be in the US in August. I would return three days after the celebration, but my sister is capable of holding forte for all of us. I would have to complete my tour whether I like it or not because every dollar is very important.
Is there any special thing you miss about Fela?I wish Fela were alive to see my children and play the role of grandfather to them. I would have loved him to be with Made (Femi’s first son) because he is so much like Fela. They would have been very close. He would have given Made this positive non-challant attitude about life. It is not that I cannot give my son such training, but I cannot afford to slack because Fela’s enemies wish my failure for them to boast that he was a failure. My failure would prove them right about Fela, but my success will prove Fela right.I regret, in a way, grooming Made to be hard. If Fela were around, he would have trained him to be simple and take life more simply. Fela would have given him that simple life touch, which I cannot afford because of the dangers ahead.I see a lot of Fela in Made than myself. Though he is not rascally, I see more of this Kuti trait in him. I am sure when he is older, he will want to display and assert his own authority.
What about his attitude to sex?People should be careful about their sex life. In our days, it was just gonorrhea and syphilis. All these diseases have accumulated to become more deadly. One has to be careful. If you cannot abstain (from sex), you need to stick to one partner because the consequences can be grave. I have fought for the drugs to be made available to Africans. Anytime I perform abroad, I seize the opportunity to remind them of the dangers of HIV/AIDS because we don’t have any healthcare programme here.
If Fela were still around, would he have had any influence on your musical career?This is my 21 years on the stage. It has been years of hard work to ensure that I remain relevant. I have played free concerts in the past. But today, anywhere I go the tickets are sold out. Now my Femi is a household name. With all due respect to Fela, youths who didn’t know him previouly are now beginning to learn about him because of me. When they ask questions about me and they find out that he was my father, they also go and find out about him. In the same fashion, my son would come and do something that I may not have done.
What’s on the card, musically speaking?Working in Nigeria is very difficult. I have been working to release my work in the international market. It takes a lot of time if you want a good production. It is even more difficult being political. Again, the pirates are not helping matters and the big names in the industry are not selling like before because of bootlegging or downloading from the internet. It is now better having a live band because if you don’t have one, you may run into trouble. The bands are the ones surviving the hard times. Youths of nowadays don’t see any reason why they should buy because they have different attitudes. Though I wouldn’t say it is bad, people just have to find a way to survive.
What value did Fela add to the entertainment industry?Afrobeat has gone international and everybody is trying to play it. Lots of bands in the US and Europe now play Afrobeat. My father inspired lots of the bands. Fela is now a household name everywhere around the world.
What’s your assessment of Nigerian music industry?I don’t listen to any Nigerian musician because they don’t inspire me. The people that inspire me are my Fela and Miles Davies among others. These are people whose lives depended on music and not money. They are the ones who can inspire me. I am not saying what the Nigerian acts are doing is not good, but I won’t go out of my way to listen to them. We have a disco night every Friday at the Shrine where they play hip-hop music. I love to watch them dance to the hip-hop music.Fela was an avowed critic of Nigerian governments. What about you?Since the return of democratic governance in Nigeria, I have not taken notice of any government. I do what I have to do by continuing to fight them with my music. They have bastardized our lives. I was trained to be just, so I have always challenged anything that is unjust. I didn’t notice Obasanjo and I was one of his greatest critics. I put a lot of pressure on his government internationally, and I would also put pressure on this (Yar’Adua) government. The attitude of the politicians, the rich and the directors in the various companies who are the backbone of the various governments. These people are the dangers to the society because they refuse to see the common man on the street. They don’t get to see the level of poverty in the land because they are restricted to Ikoyi, Abuja, US and Europe. They don’t know what happens in the slums and they are non-challant. So, if you ask me, I’ll tell you that all I see is just a bunch of corrupt…
So what do you have to tell those in government? They should stop being corrupt. The biggest problem in Africa is corruption. We don’t love ourselves.For quite sometime you were off air, so to speak. I mean not being in the media spotlight. What went wrong?I have not watched television or read the papers for seven years now. I stopped when the Nigerian media turned against me. If they could not come to my defence, why should I read them? I have opened doors for the Nigerian media. I was always fighting our cause abroad, I have never brought any negative story or shame to Nigeria and I have won awards. All the income I make, I bring back to this country. I can afford to take my family and go and live in the US or anywhere. But the media suddenly turned against me.Imagine this, a media writes a bold headline that “Femi is mad’. I later arrived at the airport and the immigration officer saw me and asked ‘How is your health?’ and I begin to ask myself questions about myself. It is better to be dead than for people to say you are mad. Sometimes I walk on the road and people come to me to ask if I am mad or not. It is terrible. Imagine somebody writing that you are mad. You want to drink water from a cup and you suddenly became aware that people are watching to see how you do it because they think you are mad.Some, whom I took like elder brothers, decided to turn against me because they thought I was making money outside and I was not giving them part of it. But they are wrong!