As any true fan of the Afrobeat genre or the Kuti dynasty will tell you, Felabration, the week-long music festival celebrating the life and times of the most radical and eccentric musician the African continent has ever seen, is a big deal.
The festival has been held every October since 1998, the year after his death and attracts heavyweights in the music industry in Nigeria and beyond. This year, the frenzy was no different as an impressive array of artistes – more or less a ‘who is who’ of musicians in Nigeria – performed at the New Africa Shrine, venue of the event. Funky British-Nigerian guitarist, Keziah Jones and Third World, the legendary reggae band from Jamaica, were also on the bill. And then Femi and Seun Kuti, sons of Fela Anikulakpo-Kuti performed in front of a mammoth crowd that included Sandra Izsadore, Fela’s friend and mentor.
No thanks to work commitments and the stress of commuting from island to mainland, I attended just the grand finale on Sunday. I missed seeing a rejuvenated Majek Fashek on stage during the week. According to eyewitness reports, it was his best performance in years and marked the return of his sober alter ego.
I went alone sadly and in through one of the VIP gates thanks to old connections from my time as an entertainment journalist. After navigating to a side of the crowd less occupied than the others, I found a spot. Here I quickly ordered and downed in similar fashion, a plate of asun so spicy the roof of my mouth felt like an oven on Thanksgiving Day. So I got a bottle of water and a another, of a liquid that shall not be mentioned.
By this time, new kid on the block, Koker of Chocolate City had the crowd gyrating to ‘Do Something’, his latest single, which laced with a lot of percussions sounds primed for any dance floor.
Third World, the imports from Jamaica, native land of reggae and dancehall, turned on the heat with a solid two-hour rendition of their hits over the past decade. There was their chart-topping cover of ‘Now That We Found Love’ and a medley of other hits that they had sung at concerts and roadshows in their country and across Europe with Bob Marley and The Wailers. It was like being in the presence of a bubbly ghost so familiar, yet so strange.
The most impressive thing about their live band performance was the dexterity with which their drummer played the jazz, conga and talking drums. As one who played drums for over six years, I could understand and appreciate his fine-tuning the rhythm and amplifying the melody through his intimate conversations with the drum. At the risk of exaggerating, I can say I have never heard any other drummer as good as him, save for Tony Allen, co-originator of the Afrobeat sound – who was missing in action in Lagos.
The crowd had become an amalgamation of sweaty bodies and cheering fans, braying loudly in appreciation of the music notes from stage. As smoke from the suya stands sashayed into my nostrils from the left and that from marijuana wafted in from the right and everywhere else, I knew that was my cue to leave.
And leave I did, just as the anchor for the night, the loquacious comedian Omobaba announced that Wizkid and Olamide were backstage and would be belting out feel-good tunes from their catalog soon. The time was 1:30am on Monday morning.
