Mádé Kuti, a musician and grandson of Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti, has spoken about why his family has historically been more appreciated internationally than in Nigeria. Kuti said that during Fela’s lifetime, there was a strong propaganda campaign against him that portrayed him as a womanizer and a terrible human being, which made it difficult for him to be accepted by the Nigerian middle class.
Speaking on the “Tea With Tay” podcast, Kuti recounted stories of his family’s struggles, including his father having to beg for rent and being unable to date girls because being a Kuti was a “major red flag”. He noted that most of the major projects celebrating Fela’s legacy after his death, such as documentaries and the Broadway musical, were all initiated internationally, not locally.
Mádé Kuti stated: “Fela was not seen as someone that was financially successful because the propaganda around him was that he was an igbo smoker, a womanizer, and a very terrible human. So they managed to sell a very strong narrative to the at least the middle class and it worked for a very long time… If you look at all of the major Fela posts after his passing, the appreciations like the movies, the documentaries, the Fela on Broadway, all of that was international……See More
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