Seun Kuti, a Nigerian singer, has clarified a common misconception about his late father, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.
According to Seun, Fela’s music targeted Nigeria’s wealthy elite, not the government directly.
Fela, a renowned Afrobeat pioneer and social critic, used his music to address societal injustices and poor governance.
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In a recent podcast appearance shared on Instagram Monday, Seun explained that his father’s music was often misinterpreted as a direct attack on the government, when in fact, it was aimed at the rich and powerful individuals who exploited and oppressed the masses.
Seun cited specific song examples, such as “Lady”, “Swegbe and Akpako”, “Ikoyi Blindness”, and “Ikoyi versus Mushin”, which criticize the excesses and corruption of Nigeria’s wealthy class.
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He argued that this led to a conspiracy between the rich and the government, resulting in Fela facing physical and media backlash.
He said, “People have a lot of misconceptions about my family and what we’ve done or what we didn’t. For example, I even believed for a long time that my dad bought a Benz, cut the roof off and used it to carry vegetables.
“I believed it because I grew up hearing it everywhere. Until one day, somebody said it in front of my dad and he was shocked.
“Then we don’t understand the larger narrative because to us in the new generation, the story sounds like, what a gangster thing to do, right?
“But back then when colonisation just ended, doing such in the 1970s when people were suffering, he couldn’t have done that then. But there were rumours that he did it because they wanted people to think that he was crazy and frivolous.
“People say Fela fought the government, Fela did not fight the government of Nigeria, Fela fought the rich folks of Nigeria.
“Go and listen to his songs such as ‘Lady’, ‘Swegbe and Akpako’, ‘Ikoyi Blindness’, ‘Ikoyi versus Mushin’. A plethora of songs just attacking the rich people of Nigeria.
“That was why the rich people ganged up with the government against him. As the government was physically assaulting him, the rich folks who owned the media were backing them up with lies and propaganda about him to make whatever punishment that they were giving to him seen just.”
Watch him speak below…
