May 15, 2011

Femi Kuti Tonight At Neumos

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It takes a special kind of person to follow in the footsteps of your world renown father, but that’s just who Femi Kuti is. For those who are not familiar, Femi Kuti is the son of Fela Kuti, who is often cited as the creator of “Afrobeat” music. My god, that is a legacy that casts a shadow with no traces of daylight in sight. He could have been a pilot or quite possibly the most musically inclined farmer that the world never heard of. What does he do instead? He joins his father’s band. Three decades later, Femi Kuti has released several albums that have received critical acclaim (two Grammy nominations), he has collaborated with the likes of D’Angelo (let’s ignore some of those meltdowns), Mos Def and Nile Rodgers (like a boss), been an ambassador for Amnesty International and used his voice to raise AIDS awareness around the world. Most importantly, Femi Kuti’s voice is featured on Grand Theft Auto IV where he is the host of the radio station International Funk. This last sentence will make for great trivia the next time you’re at a party in which many of the attendees are E3 nerds that also happen to be afrobeat junkies.

Kuti’s latest album Africa for Africa is, let me give you the technical term — “bad-ass.” Femi Kuti and his band Positive Force will get you up and moving for an entire hour nonstop. Yes, even you the uptight Seattlite will move like you have ants in your pants. The rhythm is going to get you. Let’s not get carried away though, Femi has a lot to say. You don’t name your songs “Can’t Buy Me,” “Bad Government,” and “Politics in Africa” because you want to be the background music to the good time of someone else. Much like James Brown used funk to deliver social messages to the masses, Femi Kuti uses afrobeat to do the same. This is the last date of the North American tour for Femi Kuti and Positive Force. I can promise you that they’ll leave it all onstage. The Onion called Femi Kuti “one of the more powerful live shows on Earth,” but they were being serious. Just think about that for a second…

Tickets are $25. Doors are at 8pm.

Posted by phil


on Sunday, May 15th, 2011 at 12:32 pm

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