Revolution Afropop, Take 2

These days, Lagos pop music is dominated by R&B and hip hop artists who ape the styles and sounds of their American counterparts, eschew political consciousness in favour of raunchy sex play, and earn millions in the process. Earlier in his career, Femi praised hip hop, but he has no patience for the genre’s current superstars in Nigeria, the likes of P-Square, 2Face Idibia, and D’Banj. “I can see the game plan,” said Femi. “The plan is to keep on deceiving the people, promoting songs that are not relevant to my life. Why should I be bothered with that?”

“In Nigeria, the only two Afrobeat bands are me and my brother,” said Seun. “You can’t understand how hard it is to run an Afrobeat band in Lagos.” For starters, few young musicians bother any more to learn guitar, bass, and kit drums, let alone brass instruments. “Even when the government sponsors things,” Seun lamented, “they won’t put on any Afrobeat. They’re trying to make Afrobeat seem like old music, crazy people’s music. My brother’s place is the only place you can go and listen to Afrobeat live, in the whole of Nigeria — incredible. There are at least twenty places in New York where you can do that.”

On December 15, 2007, as both brothers prepared to release new music internationally, and Seun and Egypt 80 planned a summer tour of Europe and North America, Nigerian police raided the New Africa Shrine. “They arrested all the customers and flogged them,” said Femi, “took them to the station, beat everybody.” Two months later, an atmosphere of fear lingered, and attendance at the club was way down. Chagrined but seasoned by adversity, Femi portrayed the raid as a kind of affirmation amid depressing popular apathy in Nigeria. “It shows that Afrobeat can’t die,” he said. “It won’t die with Fela.”