Kingston, Jamaica has the Bob Marley Museum. Memphis, Tennessee has Elvis Presley’s Graceland. For the first time ever, fans of the Nigerian superstar Fela Kuti can visit the Kalakuta Museum in Lagos, Nigeria.
If the music icon Fela Kuti were alive today, he would have celebrated his 74th birthday. In his honor, enthusiasts and reporters gathered in the Ikeja area of the commercial hub of Lagos for the inauguration of the Kalakuta Museum this week. The museum, which offers visitors a look into the life of the creator of afrobeat music, is expected to attract tourists and fans worldwide.
“Everybody has a piece of Fela in him. He touched everybody,” museum architect Theo Lawson told Reuters.
The remains of the highly acclaimed musician remain in the family’s former house, which was converted for the museum. The Lagos State Government reportedly funded the remodeling project with $250,000. It is decorated with Fela’s shoes, family photographs and art.
For many, the new Kalakuta Museum is a long-awaited treasure and an assurance that Fela remains relevant.
Fela Anikulapo Kuti, born October 15, 1938, is widely regarded as the most controversial, the most intriguing, the most radical music artist to have emerged from Africa. Fifteen years after his premature death in 1997 to AIDS-related complications, his story is still being told.
The pan-Africanist, marijuana smoking polygamist is still controversial. But his profound impact on pop culture, especially on hip hop, is unmistakable.
“Fela is the one African figure whose story resonates with modern American hip hop culture,” Questlove, music producer and drummer for the Grammy-winning band The Roots, said in an on-camera interview.
“The trials and tribulations that he went through politically, socially, creatively, it’s the story of hip hop. It’s the story of taking nothing and making it into something.”
Artists from D’Angelo, Nas, Kanye West to Macy Gray, Jay-Z, Hugh Masekela to Common, Beyonce, Kelis, Stevie Wonder and Santigold have expressed their admiration of Fela’s infectious beats and multi-layered music compositions.
“Just the sense of rhythm …all the different parts coming in then locking it together in a special way. I think that’s the type of thing that I was innately affected by,” said pop artist Santigold in an interview on NPR’s “All Things Considered.”
The 2009 Broadway debut of the Tony-award winning Fela! musical introduced scores of Americans to Fela and his music. First Lady Michelle Obama gave the performance a standing ovation.
His iconic image is plastered on t-shirts, hats and murals, flags, cement walls and magazines. But along with his music, it was his undeniable fortitude and his commitment to stand for what he believed in that has earned the African maverick an international following.
That’s why he has even been dubbed the “Original Occupy Wall Streeter.”
Fela could have composed the anthem for the Occupy Wall Street movement that went global after a few hundred people staked out at Zuccoti Park in New York City’s financial district.
“Music is the weapon of the future,” Fela once said.
With his revolutionary lyrics immortalized in songs like International Thief Thief, Authority Stealing, and V.I.P. (vagabonds in power), Fela railed against the pillage of Africa’s mineral resources, the siphoning of public funds and neocolonialism.
Through his music, Fela advocated black consciousness and socio-political liberation. Arrested more than 150 times, jailed and beaten, Fela was a thorn in the side of Nigeria’s ruling elite, a maverick in every sense. He was also a tireless voice for the ailing masses of Nigeria’s populace who were oppressed in a crumbling political system of endemic corruption; a beacon for a people who had succumbed to a life of suffering and smiling.
Often described as the “Nigerian Bob Marley” and the “African James Brown,” Fela ignited a movement for Africans to protests against repressive regimes. His funky grooves, complex rhythms and brazen lyrics became his trademark. As Stevie Wonder once noted, to Fela, “the musical world owes a debt of gratitude.”