NIGERIA: Nigerian afro music legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti's house where he lived and died is under-going a transformation into a museum as a measure made to immortalize his name as one of the fearless human rights activists in the country.

Record ID: 235854

  • Title: NIGERIA: Nigerian afro music legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti's house where he lived and died is under-going a transformation into a museum as a measure made to immortalize his name as one of the fearless human rights activists in the country.
  • Date: 24th October 2012
  • Summary: FEMI AND SEUN KUTI PERFORMING ON STAGE
  • Embargoed: 8th November 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Nigeria
  • Country: Nigeria
  • Topics: Arts
  • Reuters ID: LVABOK7461YP9VVFUOHLRAR9660A
  • Story Text: Located unassumingly on a street in Lagos, this building stands as symbol of Nigeria's rich history.
    The old home of afrobeat legend, Fela Kuti is now the Kalakuta Museum - renovated to display some of his humble possessions, which today would make rare collectors' items for his fans.
    His son, Seun Kuti walking around the house while it was still under construction and remembering the good old days, said the museum is an opportunity for Fela's followers to experience and understand his life and his achievements.

    "Most people have been outside looking in so this is an opportunity to invite everybody to come in as well and see for themselves and not follow the myth that being in Fela's house meant you are a hooligan or a prostitute or all we do is smoke weed and all that; this house was a house of education, I could tell you so many people that passed through this house never went to school one day and achieved great things in their lives and they are doing good today," he said.
    The museum was officially opened at the start of a week-long annual "Felabration" to mark his 74th birthday on Monday (Oct 15). It is also a boutique hotel, with a bar and stage.
    Inside, decorations include brightly colored murals, chic African art, photos from his life and performances.
    When he was alive, Fela electrified Nigerians and many music lovers the world over with his hip-shaking and strangely hypnotic blend of jazz, funk and West African folk rhythms.
    His legendary sexual exploits with dozens of women, marijuana smoking and fearless critiques of Nigeria's then corrupt and oppressive military regime only served to heighten the mystique.

    "There are monuments of Fela all over the place, I mean the biggest monuments are in our hearts because everybody has a piece of Fela in him, he touched everybody, as far as physical monuments, I think there are busts all over the places, people have built busts and have done effigies of Fela all over the place but as far as a large, physical monument is concerned, this is the first and it's very apt that it's in his house and that's where he is buried," said Theo Lawson, an architect.
    His bedroom remains as it was when he died of HIV/AIDS in 1997: a bed, clothes, shoes, colorful underpants -- often they were all he wore. His electric keyboard has been mounted.

    "A day like this is a very symbolic day, that is the starting point of a new chapter in the history of Africa, I don't want to say Nigeria because I do not want to fall into the pit hole of colonialism, I have to understand that Nigeria is an colonial structure likewise all African countries, Nigeria is too small for me, I want to take Africa along in this dream of Marcus Garvey, Lumumba, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Kwame Nkrumah and my father, great men like these, they stood for Africa, not their individual countries, so for this dream of Africa to be the envy of the world, this is a solid foundation," said Fela's eldest son, Femi Kuti.
    The 'Afrobeat' sound that Fela Kuti concocted in the 1960s and that has been carried on by his sons, mixes bass groves with jazz organ and traditional West African drumming, punctuated by a cacophony of horns and shrill backing vocals by gyrating women in colourful beads.
    Fela's fondness for smoking massive, cone-shaped marijuana "spliffs" on stage and his rejection of Nigeria's two monotheistic religions; Christianity and Islam, in favour of traditional Yoruba gods did not endear him to its conservative elites.
    Neither did the stories of Fela's 27 wives and his free love sex commune.
    In the late 1970s Fela became a symbol of the struggle against successive military dictators.
    In 1977 his smash hit "Zombie" infuriated the military by accusing soldiers of being violent, brainless automata.
    In the same year, around 1,000 soldiers descended on his commune in a rampage in which they burned down the house, cracked his skull and threw his septuagenarian mother out of a window.

    "That was one man that brought awareness to the people, that was one man that spent all his time, his life and his art for the development of the people, that was one man that had a choice to be something else but chose to be on the side of the people," said Segun Adefila, a fan of Fela.
    To mark the end of Felabration week, hundreds of fans gathered at "The Shrine" where Fela's sons performed together for the first time in 15 years.
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