AMY GOODMAN: You are listening to Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman.

Six years ago this week, over a million Nigerians took to the streets of Lagos to mourn the death of Fela Kuti, the great bandleader and political dissident. He is viewed by many as the greatest African musician of the last half-century. By the time of his death, he had released 77 albums. He once established a short-lived independent country within Nigeria named the Kalakuta Republic.

He was arrested over 350 times for his political dissidence. In one case, 1,000 troops that were under the old dictator Obasanjo, now president again, stormed Fela Kuti’s compound with mortar fire. They threw his mother and brother from a window. Fela was hospitalized. Members of Fela’s family were attacked, beaten and raped. His mother eventually died of her injuries. She was a well-known anti-colonialist and feminist. She started the Nigerian Women’s Union and was an inspiration to Fela throughout his life. Following her death in 1978, Fela made a replica of her coffin and brought it to the home of Obasanjo.

Fela established a new form of music, Afrobeat, which combined the funkiness of James Brown, the politics of Kwame Nkrumah, the soulfulness of John Coltrane, with a base rooted in traditional African music.

He once married 27 women in one night. Though only five-foot-seven, Fela was a larger-than-life figure unlike any other musician the world has seen. His nickname was the Black President. Many in Nigeria believe Fela may have become the country’s first civilian leader if he had lived. Instead, AIDS took his life at the age of 57. While there had been rumors that he was sick, Fela never publicly acknowledged he had AIDS, a disease that has killed millions upon millions of Africans.

In the years after his death, his son Femi Kuti, an Afrobeat star in his own right, soon took up AIDS awareness as one of his main causes. Last year he helped arrange the release of the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Riot, which featured a slew of Western musicians paying homage to Fela. On it were the hip-hop stars Mos Def and Common, jazz legend Archie Shepp, soul singer Macy Gray and Brooklyn-based Afrobeat act Antibalas, who have been leading a revival of Fela’s music here. In the United States, Fela’s popularity has soared since his death. Dozens of his long-out-of-print records have been reissued on CD. A new generation of Afrobeat bands have emerged. And in New York, a major multimedia art exhibit on Fela’s life has opened at the New Museum of Contemporary Art.

Yesterday I called Fela’s son, Femi Kuti, in Lagos, Nigeria, and spoke with Michael Veal, an ethnomusicologist at Yale University, who came into our studio. He’s written the biography of Fela called Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon. I began with Femi in Nigeria, who was speaking to us from his nightclub, The Shrine. I began by asking him to take us back six years ago this week, August 1997, to describe his father’s funeral.

FEMI KUTI: Oh, well, it was a very big day. I mean, loads of people turned out, apparently millions of people. I mean, it’s hard to say how many people, but, I mean, everywhere was completely jammed. Traffic stopped. Work stopped. Everything stopped on that day. It was incredible. I’ve never seen so many people out to — I don’t know if it says — if you say to celebrate the life of Fela or to pay respect to such a great man of the people. And it was incredible. It was massive. I mean, I expected it, but I never believed it was that huge, I mean, because I — we made all the preparations for so many people and all that, but, I mean, it was three days of so many people paying their respects and all that.

AMY GOODMAN: At the time, your father did not talk about dying of AIDS, but you were outspoken, as your uncle was, his brother, Dr. Ransome-Kuti, who had been minister of health. Can you talk about AIDS and music, where that fit into your father’s life, and now yours, and your positions on it?

FEMI KUTI: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I have a track on AIDS. I talk about it. But like, during when it started, I always go back to explain to people why my father fell victim, you could say, to the disease, is because his brother did a bad job as minister of health at that time. I mean, if he couldn’t get across to his brother, then it’s a shame. How would he have gotten across to the nation? I mean, you have to get through to your closest people before you can even talk to a whole country. So, my father didn’t speak about because he didn’t believe, because he said there was nothing substantial or no proof to show him this disease was caused by sex and whatever. So, as his brother, he should have given him abundant proof. And my discussions with my father were always, “Look, they should show me an AIDS victim.” And if I were his brother, I’d showed him 10, if they said millions existed in Nigeria at that time.

AMY GOODMAN: How does it influence your work? As you said, in your latest record, your latest CD, you sing about AIDS, one of your tracks, “Stop AIDS.” What do you think needs to be done? And also, your critique of the Western AIDS establishment?

FEMI KUTI: I mean, the problem is life and education has moved us to the direction where it’s going to be very difficult to — it’s not impossible, but it’s going to be a very big battle in the future. And I don’t believe it’s just AIDS that will be the problem, because education has — there is so much hypocrisy, hypocrisy and lies, in education that we are not taught about what life is. Everybody wants a car. Everybody’s talking about sex. Nobody’s talking about, I mean, the respect of life, the essence of life. So education does not deal with the essence of life and tradition and culture and all that thing, and all those things that existed in Africa before, that made the continent so pure and the envy of the rest of the world. Now everybody wants to be European or America. Everybody — I mean, blue movies are being shown. I mean, anybody can go onto the internet. Young children can go into pornographic things and all that. So it’s a very big problem, I believe, in the future. So, people like me, I mean, we can always think about it, warn the use about it, and see — and probably, hopefully, a generation will come by that will respect themselves to understand the essence of life.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about growing up with your father, growing up in the world of Fela, in the world of political repression, in the world of music and culture, what it meant for your father to have been imprisoned a number of times, your grandmother have been killed by the Nigerian military?

FEMI KUTI: Yeah. Ironically, it was then the same president who America today supports wholeheartedly, who believe is one of the best presidents in Africa, was the man who committed these atrocities at that time, who is now president of Nigeria, you see? So, everybody in New York, in America, the rest of Europe, they all say, “No, Fela, Fela, Fela, Fela.” You go through his songs, he’s mentioning this man’s name like hell. And now we come back to 2003. He’s back in power, and America most supports him as one of the greatest presidents ever in Africa. This is so — I don’t know how a man who such a great artist like my father had so many doubts about can be supported by such a intelligence like America. You see, the facts from the historical life and times of Fela’s mother, or Fela himself, prove that what is happening in Nigeria and the rest of Africa, like Charles Taylor and all, what’s going on, it’s completely wrong. And for Europe and America to support the African governments, I mean, it’s — that’s the sadness and the pity of the issue. So, it’s good we have somebody like Fela, who, after his death, his albums can speak like this. And we, as the younger generation coming up, can see who the enemies of our lives are.

AMY GOODMAN: Right now the U.S. has invaded Iraq. Oil is on a lot of people’s minds. Oil is also the key for dictator after dictator in Nigeria remaining in power, cementing the relationship between the Nigerian regime and U.S. government after U.S. government. Can you talk about political corruption? Can you talk about oil in your father’s songs, like, well, “I.T.T., International Thief Thief,” also your own work?

FEMI KUTI: If you go back to my father’s works, he tells you the whole history of what happened from the '70s ’til his death. And the facts remain that exactly what was happening then has continued and has grown into an evil huge monster that has eaten up everybody. And America is participating in the crime, because America — I mean, the embassies are here. Your intelligence will tell them, like intelligence told them about Saddam and Afghanistan and whatever, about the corruption. I mean, if I was going to do business with any country, I would find out what the people are like. And intelligence must tell them that — I mean, we all know. It's not a hidden fact. The corruption in Nigeria, according to the U.N., is the most corrupt nation. World Bank or one of these huge bodies says Nigeria is the most corrupt nation in the world. They must have their facts to say that. At the same time, Nigerians can’t pay Nigeria’s debt. We know how much we’re talking about. We’re talking about billions and billions of dollars that individuals have. If they have this money that they have made from the resources of the land, then how come nobody is on their case? Because they are all storing this money in Europe and America, having a good time with their families and their lives and the governments of Europe and America, to the detriment of the people of the country, who have not been here for the people to be happy, or no education, health system doesn’t work. The security doesn’t work. Nothing works properly. And all this money, individuals have and are having a ball. And America and all these countries talk about God and justice and all this, and they participate in one of the most evil crimes mankind has seen in the — now we’re in the 21st century.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Femi Kuti, the great musician and son of another great musician, Fela, talking about the politics of our day. What is the role of the artist in Nigeria? We see artists now in this country, in the United States, musicians feeling a lot of heat if they speak out and criticize the government. What about you in Nigeria? And what about your father in Nigeria?

FEMI KUTI: I mean, my father was one of the first to start the trend, and I think it should continue. And luckily, people have learned the lesson. I think a lot of artists are speaking out. More should speak out, because the more artists — the artist has a huge following. Once the governments of the world know they cannot get away with this kind of gangsterism, then probably one day good people will now come into power and start to serve the people and not sit back and let the people serve them and think they’re kings. Democracy is not about knighting a king. It’s about you say you want to serve, and that means you are going to be the house boy or the housekeeper of the country, not the country serve you. We’re not talking about kingdoms and empires here. We’re talking about a government system called democracy. So, the more artists that speak against their governments around the world and put more youths and more people aware of the future and their generation and their time, the better for the next generation.

AMY GOODMAN: And do you feel that you can speak out? Do you feel any constraints?

FEMI KUTI: I don’t think about that. I mean, if I thought about the constraints I have here, I would, first of all, not be here. I’ll be totally scared. I will not be able to think straight. And so, those are obstacles. I believe in what I’m doing. I believe Africa can unite. I believe there is a great future for this continent. I believe there’s a great future for the rest of the world. I strongly believe in many things pertaining to this ideology. So, why, I will not think about the obstacles that will stop me from my belief. And I’ll continue to use my music, my life and all my resources to promote Africa, the African culture, the African way of life, spiritualism and things like this. So I’ll do my part as an individual.

AMY GOODMAN: Femi, you mentioned Liberia and what is happening there today. When President Bush took his trip through Africa in the last weeks, one of the stories that was breaking then was how he had used the country of Niger as a ruse, saying that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium from Niger. It turned out to be a bogus story. So, as he traveled through Africa, it became clear that Africa had been used as a justification for the invasion of Iraq, not to mention the special emphasis on Africa now, from the Bush administration point of view, to have relanding rights for military planes, a base in Djibouti and other places, of course, what’s going on in Liberia. Can you comment on African politics, and when you come here, what you understand people don’t understand about your continent?

FEMI KUTI: I think it’s all simple. This is — we are going into an era of second slavery. America wants to take over the world. America wants this. I mean, if we’re talking about peace, what do we need guns and bombs for? Some people are talking about the dangers this — all the guns and bombs are causing the Earth, the atmosphere and things like this. And America now, everybody, all the supernations keep on going, throwing bombs everywhere, wherever. A repercussion will come back and hit mankind one day, one where we’re having heat wave everywhere. What do you think causes all this? People are complaining about the ozone layer. And we still — nobody wants to listen. But the scientists who created all these things are saying, “Whoa, hey, there’s a danger right now.” Nobody’s listening, because they want to make money, you see?

And I think what is happening right now is completely wrong. It’s evil. And it’s sad. It’s really sad. It’s really sad that we find ourselves at this age, when we should be having a ball. I mean, we should be building progress everywhere. We shouldn’t be talking about racism. We should be talking about the 21st century. Everybody should be happy. We’re talking about another possible era of wars and all the things that we should have and the world should have learned from the Second World War and many other historical facts like this. So, that’s all sad.

FELA KUTI: What has America done to Africa that is bad? Bringing arms, dividing the people, wrong knowledge, bringing Christianity, bringing Jesus Christ, turning the people’s minds —

AMY GOODMAN: This is Fela.

FELA KUTI: — upside down, bringing in fertilizers, doing shit, wanting to bring Western civilization here, America and England trying to brainwash Africans. You are the colonialists. You are the slave riders.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think that Fela would have been president today of Nigeria if he had lived?

FEMI KUTI: Would he have been president? I don’t know. That’s very hard to — but I believe my father gave up a long time with the politics of Nigeria. It’s too corrupt. The people are — I mean, people who have the money to do anything are too corrupt. The government has so much power to influence people that it’s unbelievable. And when a country like Nigeria has the backing of America, I mean, they can just practically do what they want to do.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re also joined in the studio — 

AMY GOODMAN: You are listening to Democracy Now!, as we broadcast this interview with Femi Kuti, who is the son of Fela, the great Nigerian musician, his son also an international Afrobeat star. We’ll come back with him and Fela’s biographer in a minute. This is Femi’s music. It’s called “Stop AIDS.”

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AMY GOODMAN: You are listening to Democracy Now!, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue our discussion on the sixth anniversary of the burial of Fela Kuti, the great Nigerian bandleader, musician, political dissident, who died of AIDS August 1997, talking with his son Femi Kuti and the biographer of Fela, Michael Veal, author of Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon. I asked Michael Veal to talk about Fela’s music.

AMY GOODMAN: His power grew.

MICHAEL VEAL: Right. Well, a lot of people don’t know that Fela was playing a type of West African popular music called highlife long before he started playing what became known as Afrobeat. And that was more of a good-time, lighthearted dance music, sounds like calypso or soca or that kind of thing. Fela hadn’t become politicized at that point. This is in the early and mid-1960s, we’re talking about. His music really didn’t become political until about 1970, when he traveled to the U.S. and experienced the civil rights movement and the Black Power movement that was in progress at that time. After that time, you know, he returned to Nigeria and created this thing called Afrobeat, which sounded a little bit like the highlife that he had played before, but also sounded more jazzy, like John Coltrane, that kind of modal sound, and also sounded very funky, like James Brown. And then the things that he was singing became much more political. This was around 1970.

AMY GOODMAN: And just take it forward, from 1970.

MICHAEL VEAL: Well, I mean, that’s a long story. But I would say that his early music — his early Afrobeat music wasn’t as directly confrontational. It wasn’t as explicitly political as it later became. I think as the opposition from the Nigerian government and the Nigerian elites grew towards him, which, as we know, culminated in various physical attacks on his household and other members of his family, his music, accordingly, became more political and more confrontational, until, you know, in the 1980s and ’90s, towards the end of his life, in his songs he was actually naming the names of various Nigerian politicians and prominent people and castigating them for the different things that they were doing.

So, I think, in that respect, Fela was almost completely unique in Africa, because we know the traditional role of musicians in Africa is — you know, they’re very closely aligned with the ruling classes. All the great musical art and visual art, all the great paintings and sculptures and carvings that we see produced in Africa, a lot of that was produced under the patronage of, you know, the ruling classes, either traditional rulers, historically, or, in contemporary society, politicians, very wealthy people. And as such, art in Africa is often used to praise the wealthy and the powerful in society. And so, in this light, Fela’s music and his art was completely unique in Africa, because he took a completely opposing stance.

AMY GOODMAN: It was AIDS that took him down, but many would have believed it would have been the Nigerian government. He was imprisoned one time after another. Can you explain how he ended up in jail each of those times? And maybe Femi also can talk about those times.

MICHAEL VEAL: Well, I think he was arrested, supposedly, hundreds of times, they say. I only know the major times. Femi probably would know the day-to-day. But the the best-known attacks on Fela and his compound would be, I think, two attacks by the military government in 1974, one in early '75, and then the best-known one is from early 1977. That was 1,000 soldiers of the Nigerian Army attacked his compound and burned the place to the ground, brutalized everyone. That's the attack in which Fela’s mother was injured, and she later died from those injuries. He was imprisoned in 1984 on his way to a major concert tour in the U.S. He was imprisoned in 1993. He was imprisoned in ’96 and early ’97. These are just, as I say, the major incidents.

AMY GOODMAN: And what was the reaction of people at the time, Femi, in Nigeria and your own family? What did you do through those times? Did you have to organize to get him out?

FEMI KUTI: I was about 12 then. So, I mean, of course, the family was running around and all that, trying to get him out of prison. After the burning of the house, we thought people were killed on that day. So, I mean, I was, I think, 12, 13 then. So, I mean, it was the older — my mother, uncles was running around. We were kids, and we were not allowed to hear some things and all that. So, everybody needs to — everybody knew what went on.

AMY GOODMAN: How did it affect your father?

FEMI KUTI: I’ve said I think, from then, he lost hope in many things in Nigeria and Africa. If the government could descend on you like that, burn everything, your mother is killed from injuries, and then you get no justice of any sort, I mean, what would you do? From then, he was stopped from playing anywhere. I mean, anything he did was — he was blacklisted, you could say.

AMY GOODMAN: And yet his music only became more popular.

FEMI KUTI: That’s, I believe, like I said, I mean, if you stay on the path of truth, justice and righteousness, you will always — at the end of the day, you will never lose that kind of battle.

AMY GOODMAN: What are your favorite songs of Fela’s? What influenced you most?

FEMI KUTI: Too many. Too many. Probably even all. It depends on my mood, what the song is about, how it affects me at that point in time of the day or when I’m listening to it. Sometimes I don’t even like listening to music. So, it really depends. But I think every — most of them are my favorites, because it affects my life at one point, growing up, when they were released or when he was composing them, the ones I took part in, etc., etc. So, they’re all very important for me.

AMY GOODMAN: Would you like to describe a few for our listeners and viewers who may not be familiar with Fela?

FEMI KUTI: Well, “Coffin for Head of State” is a song where — “Coffin for Head of State” deals with, talks about the damage Christianity and Islam have on Africa and Africans, saying we’re always just praying for God and a savior to come, while — where the pastors and imams are the ones getting rich, the money is going to Vatican City and Mecca and all this, how the businessman, if you’re not a Muslim or a Christian, you will never get any — you will not be able to get any business from the governments, because you have to be a Christian or a Muslim to get your way in Africa. And it’s about how he took his coffin, the mock coffin of his mother, who now died from injuries she sustained from the burning of the house, to the government, and how he dropped it there, how he was arrested and detained, but he proved his point. They took the coffin, because he left it there. And the coffin is still with them 'til today. The coffin is religion. That's what the song says. That’s one of my favorite songs.

And “Authority Stealing,” that’s another good one. That’s about all the excuses they give us for — and they use all these big words like “embezzlement,” “nepotism,” etc., and all these big names in the papers. When a government official is caught for stealing billions of dollars, he’s not — nothing happens to him. But when a small man in the street steals a chicken or soup from the market, he’s lynched, he’s killed, he’s locked up for years. And the people who really steal the big money, with just using the pen to sign a check, there is no justice for them. They get away with the crime. Now, the man who uses the gun to steal is shot or jailed for life. So he says that’s called authority stealing.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Femi Kuti, who is the great musician and son of Fela, the Nigerian musician who went to court hundreds of times, perhaps more than 350, jailed many times, continued to play his music, but was more than a musician in Nigeria, was a, I guess you could say, a musical statesman or anti-statesman. In fact, his compound was called the Kalakuta Republic. Can you talk about Fela forming an independent country within Nigeria?

FEMI KUTI: Yeah, he saw the disgust with the republic. He says, well, he doesn’t want to be part of a country that is run by those kind of people, so he set up his own republic. But then he was banned from using the name “republic,” so he called it Kalakuta Empire. It became an empire.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Veal, what about that? What about his — I mean, his musical power knows no boundaries. People know his music, sing, listen all over the world, his tunes. But about that challenge that he presented to the Nigerian government?

MICHAEL VEAL: Well, it was a challenge that was mainly represented in his songs, in the types of lyrics he composed, that were directly addressing the things that no other high-profile musician would sing so directly about, and that made him a hero of the people. And in a sense, it was also represented in his lifestyle, because he was, in a way, Africa’s first countercultural hero. When he came to the States in 1969, he was politicized, because he saw what was happening here with the civil rights movement and all of that, but he also came during the height of the American counterculture. And so that’s another concept that he took back to Nigeria and transplanted. So, in a way, we can consider Fela Africa’s first major countercultural figure, and that in itself represented as much of a challenge to the authorities and to the values of the society as did his music.

AMY GOODMAN: How did he end up coming to the United States?

MICHAEL VEAL: Well, they came on a concert tour in 1969 and stayed for about a year.

AMY GOODMAN: And where did they go?

MICHAEL VEAL: They were based in L.A. Well, they were supposed to tour the country, but ended up being stranded in L.A. And the tour was not successful musically. But it was transformative in terms of Fela’s worldview. And it was also transformative in terms of his music, because it was really in Los Angeles when he synthesized this thing called Afrobeat.

AMY GOODMAN: And then, talk about the progression of that music and the politics, going back and forth from jail to music, the shrine, the republic.

MICHAEL VEAL: Well, the music got more intense as time went on. As I say, the more opposition he encountered from Nigerian authorities, the more intense and the more confrontational his music got. In terms of the music itself, it developed also over time. In 1970, say, in the early '70s, well, really during the time that he had his band Afrika 70, which was his great band with Tony Allen and Igo Chico and those musicians, the music was really like an African funk kind of sound, very jazzy, but very funky. People here in the States hear it, and they compare it to James Brown, because it's got that scratchy rhythm guitar sound. In the 1980s and ’90s, it became more of like an African big band kind of sound, much more deep and complex, much more layered, a lot of chorus singing, and the songs became much longer. Some of them go on for 45 minutes or an hour at a time, with different sections and movements. So the music itself became more complicated as as his worldview became more complicated.

AMY GOODMAN: Very different from MTV today.

MICHAEL VEAL: Well, the whole thing in the '80s was initially to try to push Fela as a kind of worldbeat superstar, like a successor to Bob Marley. But Fela's music, it’s not the kind of thing that you can deconstruct into three-minute or four-minute radio-friendly segments, so it wouldn’t work that well on MTV. Of course, I think his choice is being justified now, because people are seeking his music out for those very qualities that made it unique. If you want to hear a two- or three-minute song, you can get that anywhere. You can walk up the street to Tower Records. People now, in fact, if you’re talking about dance music or groove music, they’re into long-form, you know, ongoing types of groove musics, you know, things that go on and on and on. And that’s one of the main qualities that people are attracted to in his music. They’re not two-minute songs.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about some of his songs? Femi talked about “Authority Stealing,” “Coffin for Head of State.”

MICHAEL VEAL: Well, there’s so many of them. There are hundreds of them. So it would be hard to say. “Authority Stealing” is definitely one of his greatest songs because of the analogy he makes between the man in the street robbing with the gun and the man in power robbing with the pen. “Unknown Soldier” is a great song that kind of commemorates his mother. “I.T.T.,” talking about the conduct of multinational corporations in Africa. “Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense.” There are hundreds of them; really, it would be hard to narrow it down to a few.

AMY GOODMAN: When did you first meet him?

MICHAEL VEAL: I met him in 1986, which was the first concert tour that he came to give in the United States — well, the first time since 1970. It was really the first American tour that he embarked upon since he’d become a big star.

AMY GOODMAN: Describe Fela’s band, the instruments, the band, the people, what it was like, what a show was like.

MICHAEL VEAL: Well, it was like an African big band musically. It was like a carnival visually. At that time, in the '80s, and, you know, for the rest of the Fela's career, he had about 25 or 30 people on stage. The horn section is about eight or nine members, eight chorus singers, and a whole rhythm section, was about 10 people, and Fela himself. And then there were about six or seven or eight dancers. So, it was really, you know, to the — if you just looked at it, you would think it was kind of an unplanned, sprawling carnival, but, in fact, it was extremely disciplined and rigorous. You know, Fela as a frontman and an orchestrator and a conductor was very exacting about how he put his music together and how it was performed and presented. So it was a combination of tightness and freedom.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Veal is author of Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon. His son Femi Kuti is also on the line with us from Nigeria. You’re listening to Democracy Now! Stay with us

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AMY GOODMAN: You are listening to Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, as we talk to Femi Kuti, son of Fela Kuti. The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon is the book of his biographer, Michael Veal. I asked him to describe Fela’s influence.

MICHAEL VEAL: Well, yeah, the influence was real, it was strong, and it was transformative. And you can hear echoes of all of those people that you just mentioned in Fela’s music and in his stance and in his lyrics. You know, also the thing that needs to be mentioned is Fela’s music is very much a product of that period of Black history in which pan-Africanism, you know, the idea that there was a cultural or a political connection between peoples of African descent, his music is a reflection of that, in the things that he sang about, in the people that inspired him, and also just in the sound of the music. It’s very much a reflection of that period in history, which was really a very optimistic, idealistic period for people of African descent. We’re talking about decolonization in Africa and the Caribbean, civil rights movement in the States, etc.

AMY GOODMAN: What were you most surprised by as you researched this book, as you researched your biography, Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon?

MICHAEL VEAL: What was I surprised by? I can’t say I was really surprised by anything. I mean, I did so much research that I got a huge amount of information. The one comical irony — and this is a small thing, but — is that Fela, actually, when he finished his education in England, came back to Nigeria and applied for the post of director of music in the Nigerian Army. That was an irony that not many people would — I think that would surprise people. He didn’t get the job.

AMY GOODMAN: Femi, Fela married 27 wives in one night. Your mother was not one of those women. Can you talk about — can you talk about that?

FEMI KUTI: There’s nothing to say, really.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk —

FEMI KUTI: We didn’t have any problem with it. We didn’t have any problem with it.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, can you talk about his philosophy of the polygamous relationships and what he talked to you about, what he said about them?

FEMI KUTI: Wait for my book.

AMY GOODMAN: When is it coming out?

FEMI KUTI: When I’m 60.

AMY GOODMAN: So we’ve got to wait some decades.

FEMI KUTI: About 20 years. It’s a long story. I mean, it’s a long story. I mean, I think Michael has said a lot already. I’ve said a lot already. And people need to go and look at the albums and listen to the lyrics, read. Luckily, most of the lyrics are there, and the lyrics are written on the album. There’s so much about my father out now that we can speculate — or, I mean, we don’t need to speculate. We don’t need to — I mean, we need to deal with the issue of what my father was about, what Kwame Nkrumah was about, what Malcolm X was about, what Marcus Garvey was around — about, what Sankara was about, what all these leaders —

AMY GOODMAN: What are they about to you?

FEMI KUTI: They were about making — uniting Africa, Africa having its own currency, a good life in Africa, amusement parks for the kids, an African way of life. The Africans don’t have a life today. The Africans are just spread all over the world, and there is no unity. There is war everywhere — Ethiopia, Eritrea, Rwanda and Liberia, Sierra Leone. There’s problems everywhere — Nigerians, hunger. I mean, you name it, famine, Zimbabwe, Zaire, South Africa. There’s not — you cannot even name one African country not facing acute problems right now.

And this is the issue we need to be talking about, not past tense Fela’s life. Fela did stand for something. Now this generation needs to build on what Fela stood for and move forward, or else the future of Africa is completely bleak. The next five to 10 years in Africa will be chaotic, and the United Nations or nobody will be able to do anything about it. In Nigeria, there are — we say we’re about 100 million. Imagine a Rwanda started in Nigeria. Where do you want to put 100 million people? Where? Who’s going to hospitalize or accommodate 100 million people? The neighboring African countries can’t. So, who’s going to come? By the time the — look how long it takes for them to settle the problem in Liberia, which is not even really settled. Children, women, everybody died. The whole country is in ruins. To rebuild that country is going to take billions of dollars. And, I mean, talent, everything is lost already, property, that nobody will ever be able to account for. When does Africa start to take the step into moving positively into the 21st century?

AMY GOODMAN: Michael, you wanted to add something to that. Michael Veal?

MICHAEL VEAL: Well, I wanted to make a kind of corollary point to that. You mentioned the whole wives thing and polygamy and all of that. And, of course, the topic of sex is very foregrounded with Fela because he foregrounded it himself. He made that a major part of his presentation. And that has played into his international popularity. But I think it’s very important that the significance of Fela is not just reduced to the fact that he died of AIDS. I mean, he was a person that basically died according to the way he lived. But the significance of his life and of his story is much, much, much greater than that. And I think that I agree wholeheartedly with what Femi is saying. One of the very good things about Fela’s popularity outside of Africa, particularly in the U.S. and Europe right now, is that it raises awareness about the types of things that are going on in Africa and have been going on for decades or centuries, depending on how we want to look at it. And there are very few African artists who foreground those issues in their music in that way. So, I think that the manner of Fela’s death is something that we need to learn from. And, of course, AIDS is a huge, huge problem in Africa today. But the essence of what he lived for and what his music was about and what his life means is not reducible to that. And I think there’s a huge body of work that he created that we can all learn from in that way.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, as we begin to wrap up, Femi, can we ask your views on the Bush administration today? I mean, one of the leading people in the Bush administration, Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser, had an oil tanker, the Condoleezza Rice, named after her. It’s a Chevron oil tanker in Nigeria.

FEMI KUTI: I’m 41 now. I’m a frustrated young African man living in Lagos, where we never have night constantly. The roads are bad. And blah, blah, blah, Rwanda. I’m somebody who’s so concerned, who has read books like Stolen Legacy, Black Man of the Nile. I’m worried about what is going to happen to Africa, and my son, who is 8 now. What is going to be — what is the future for him?

Now, if the Bush administration is not saying anything, and he just wants to bring warships to Africa and all these things, I’m not interested in that. I’m only interested in people who want to discuss the way forward now, like today, tonight, this evening, on how to move Africa forward, and not just have seminars and manner of speeches and manner — I’m bored. I’ve had so many conferences and talks and journalists and many [inaudible] about this matter, that. We keep going over the same thing. I’ll be 50, I’ll still be saying the same thing. So I am somebody who have not lost hope, but I want to spend my time in this area. I want to spend my energy in this area. And I want to work in this area, because I think it’s the duty of every African man and woman.

And any good right-thinking human being right now, in living, should be very politically aware about their governments, the corruption, the evil of their governments, and which way they are participating in helping their governments get away with this crime of stealing all this money to the detriment of lives of people and future, future, future generations. So, the African man, in America, Europe, everywhere, and everybody, every right-thinking man, should now focus on which way forward for the world.

We don’t need no more guns anymore. We are tired of the nuclear threats we keep hearing. When are we going to start having a good life? When are we going to listen to music and people can travel freely and people can have a ball? We went to school, and we were taught, “Look, when you come out of school, you’re going to have a ball.” And we come out of school, and life seems more complicated than before we started. So there’s something wrong with the education. There is something wrong with the system. There’s something wrong with everything. And if we don’t get to refocus, ow, the world is really going down. Whether America likes it or not, we can bomb everybody we like.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, Youssou N’Dour, the Senegalese musician, canceled his tour to North America in protest of the U.S. invasion.

FEMI KUTI: Well, if I were him, I would have gone, and I will have spoken my mind to the American people. I’ll have gone, because the American people have nothing to do with Bush’s statements. So, if I had a tour, I will go there, and I will tell them, and I will get on stage and tell them what I think about the Bush administration, if I had my views at that point in time. But I know Youssou N’Dour. So, everybody — I mean, but that’s a good way of fighting, too.

AMY GOODMAN: When are you coming to the United States?

FEMI KUTI: Anytime, anytime. I’m in Lagos right now, keeping the battle, keeping the flag flying, keeping my people happy, making them not lose hope. So I’m doing my own beat here.

AMY GOODMAN: And what do you think of — 

FEMI KUTI: Whenever.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think of —

FEMI KUTI: Hopefully next year.

AMY GOODMAN: — Obasanjo — what’s that?

FEMI KUTI: Excuse me. Hopefully next year.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think of Obasanjo offering exile to Charles Taylor from Liberia?

FEMI KUTI: Whatever is expected, please. Birds of the same feather flock together. Are you surprised Bush likes Obasanjo? I’m not surprised

AMY GOODMAN: When Obasanjo was first — when he became president this time around, I saw him in New York. He was being escorted around by the head of Chevron Corporation. And the head of Chevron Corporation talked about how the day before, they had been at Martin Luther King’s church in Atlanta. And here he was, the Chevron chief said, standing with Obasanjo in Martin Luther King’s church, and he just thought about how far we all had come.

FEMI KUTI: I think that’s hypocritical progress. How can you say that? I mean, you see, people like this always say the right thing at the right places. They go to the right places. Well, they never do the right thing. It’s easy to talk. That’s why I’m saying I’m tired of talking, I’m tired of interviews. It’s easy to say, “Yes, this is wrong. This is right.” It’s easy to criticize. It’s easy. But when you have the opportunity to change things and you don’t change things, then it becomes a problem. Obasanjo has the power to change many things, and he’s not doing it. His people are dissatisfied. We are dissatisfied with him. Like, look, with 100 million, 90 million don’t agree with Obasanjo. So, you see, he’s a name I don’t want to even talk about. This is why, at 41, I don’t want to talk about names like this. I want to talk about how to move Africa forward, and poor. And that’s a very big problem in my mind, because it’s like a mission impossible.

AMY GOODMAN: How did he become president again?

FEMI KUTI: How?

AMY GOODMAN: Yeah. How did he become —

FEMI KUTI: You should ask America that.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain a little further and educate American people?

FEMI KUTI: You should ask America how he became president. They are his biggest supporters now. He has backing now. When America says, “This is the right thing,” everybody follows. When America says, “Jump,” the whole world jumps. When America says, “Shut up,” the whole world shuts up. When America doesn’t like you, you are finished.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Veal, Fela has become more popular in the United States than ever before. Can you explain this?

MICHAEL VEAL: Well, he was a great musician. People love his music when they hear it. It has echoes. It sounds very African, but in a way that’s accessible to Americans. But at the same time, it sounds very authentically African, you know? So, he was a great musician. He’s one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century in terms of popular music, definitely one of the greatest African musicians, on par with Bob Marley as a cultural figure, cultural hero. His life story is mythical. All of those things play into it. And I think for a lot of reasons he’s justifiably a hero. He’s an African hero, or a hero of humanity, an artist who was hugely talented, but he used that talent to try to uplift humanity and not just kind of live a self-indulgent star lifestyle.

AMY GOODMAN: And that was Michael Veal, author of Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon, along with Femi Kuti, the son of Fela Kuti, the great Nigerian Afrobeat star, as is his son. And that does it for today’s program, today, the sixth anniversary of the burial of Fela Kuti in Nigeria. If you’d like to get a copy of today’s show, video or audio, you can call 1-800-881-2359. That’s 1-800-881-2359. Also our website, democracynow.org. Congratulations to our colleague, Jon Alpert, award-winning filmmaker, whose film tonight premieres on HBO called Latin Kings: A Street Gang Story. Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Angie Karran, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Kris Abrams, Lenina Nadal, Ana Nogueira. Special thanks to Elizabeth Press, as well as Parvez Sharma. Mike Di Filippo is our engineer. Our email address, mail@democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.