This week and beyond, Felabration and a global retrospective celebrate Fela Kuti’s unbroken legacy 28 years after his passing in the same city he pioneered Afrobeat. This year, Fela’s 1976 classic Zombie was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, making him the first Nigerian artist to receive the honour.
“What we really had to do was look at how we could reimagine the exhibition for the Lagos audience—something that speaks to the everyday man on the streets. There’s the older crowd who lived through Fela’s era, and the younger crowd meeting him for the first time. It gives everyone a deeper insight into who he was—not just as a musician or activist, but a creative genius whose impact endures” — Seun Alli, the curator
Lead photo: A display at the exhibition; Image by Afrobeat Rebellion
THE thump of drums and the hum of brass carry through the humid Lagos air on the eve of the annual Felabration as Nigeria’s commercial capital hosts the first international retrospective of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s life and music on its island.
“There have been ups and downs,” says Yeni Kuti, Fela’s eldest child to FORBES AFRICA, her tone measured but bright about the journey of carrying on the legacy. “But I guess the ups outweigh the downs, so I will not dwell on the downs.”
The downs include the initial pushback by the authorities against the 25-year-old New Afrika Shrine — built by Yeni and her siblings to preserve the contribution of Fela’s original Afrika Shrine — where admirers now gather to honour the man who refused to separate his art from his activism.
“Now we are at peace. We are friends with the police, we are friends with the government — I guess. Lagos State’s Ministry of Tourism supports us now. So, we have made peace,” Yeni shares.
She smiles at the thought. “It’s a legacy anybody would want to associate with. The New Afrika Shrine is now a landmark — [with] hotels, traders, event centres all around us. When we first built it, people said it was too far out of town. Now the town has come to meet us.”
The retrospective holding at a location different from the New Afrika Shrine is a travelling exhibition first mounted at the Philharmonie de Paris in 2022 — now being reimagined for the city Fela knew as home from 1963 until his passing in 1997. The exhibition layers soundscapes, archival photographs, letters, and media installations that reconstruct Fela’s world—from Kalakuta Republic to the smoky stage of the Afrika Shrine. There are workshops, youth programs, and a live map tracing Fela’s influence across continents.
“What we really had to do,” the curator Seun Alli says to FORBES AFRICA, “was look at how we could reimagine the exhibition for the Lagos audience—something that speaks to the everyday man on the streets. There’s the older crowd who lived through Fela’s era, and the younger crowd meeting him for the first time. It gives everyone a deeper insight into who he was—not just as a musician or activist, but a creative genius whose impact endures.”
Image by Tola Odukoya
BORN in 1938, Fela was shaped by a lineage of defiance. His grandfather, the Reverend J.J. Ransome-Kuti, recorded hymns for London’s Zonophone label in 1925. His father, Israel Ransome-Kuti, was a school principal and pianist. His mother, Funmilayo, was a pioneering feminist and anti-colonial activist. But Fela was not their continuation; he was their rupture.
After a formative trip to the United States in 1969, where his girlfriend Sandra Izsadore introduced him to the writings of Malcolm X, Frantz Fanon and Angela Davis, Fela returned to Nigeria with a radical mission—to turn Afrobeat into a “weapon” against the country’s military and political elite.
It’s widely recorded public knowledge that that defiance earned him repeated beatings, arrests, and the destruction of his home, the Kalakuta Republic. But it also birthed a cultural movement that still pulses through Nigeria’s veins.
Fela’s youngest son, Seun Kuti, who has led his father’s band, Egypt 80, since he was 14, insists the legend needs no embellishment.
“Fela cemented his own legacy,” Seun, who joined Fela’s band at just eight years old, says to FORBES AFRICA.
“What we do is validate, we show up, we appreciate. He did the work necessary for him to be who we all celebrate today. As his children, we uphold it, protect it, respect it, and further it.”
Now 42, Seun remembers those early days after his father’s passing as a blur of sound and sweat. “I wasn’t playing for money or recognition,” he says. “I was just having fun, doing something good for my dad. Maybe the hardest part was people comparing me to him — I was 15. But now, with the global recognition, I feel good. I still have a lot to do.”
His nephew, Made Kuti, represents the third generation of the musical dynasty. A London-trained multi-instrumentalist at the same school with his grandfather, Trinity Laban (known as Trinity College of Music in Fela’s day), Made sees the Shrine as more than a stage.
“It’s like fuel,” he said in a statement. “When you grow up in the Shrine, music becomes part of you. So does pan-Africanism. If you step into the Shrine, you see pictures of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Kwame Nkrumah, Marcus Garvey, Funmilayo Anikulapo-Kuti, Patrice Lumumba. Like my grandfather and father, I am a pan-Africanist who wants Africa to grow and also wishes for a more diverse and united planet.”
In its early years, the original Afrikan Shrine, founded in 1972 on a land leased to Fela only for the duration of his life was more than a club — it was a sanctuary for Lagos’ “sufferheads”, the working poor Fela championed in his music. Every year, he hired dozens of young men and women from the streets, giving them food, work, and purpose. Hundreds more made their livelihoods from the ecosystem that grew around the Shrine.
After his death, the New Afrika Shrine — four times the size of the original — was built using proceeds from licensing his back catalogue.
“The Shrine is probably the most important thing I’ve ever done, aside from my children,” said Femi Kuti, Fela’s eldest son, in a statement. “At first it was really tough because the government tried to stop us building. So we did it quickly, before they realised what we were up to. Then we had police raids for eight years, just coming in and breaking the place up, trying to stop what we were doing. In 2009, the authorities closed the Shrine and there was a huge outcry. That was the last time we had any police trouble. We have created a prosperous little city.”
Today, the New Afrika Shrine is both a venue and a symbol — hosting concerts, political debates, and Felabration, the annual festival Yeni founded in 1998 to celebrate her father’s legacy. Every October, around Fela’s birthday which falls on the 15th, the area transforms into a carnival of sound. “All the hotels get fully booked,” Yeni says. “We’re not making much money — inflation and electricity bills are tough — but the legacy keeps us going. I have hope. The future looks great.”
Fela’s influence still reaches far beyond Lagos. Afrobeats stars like Wizkid and Davido sample his music. The Shrine has welcomed visitors from Lauryn Hill and Bono to Naomi Campbell and President Emmanuel Macron, who spent an evening there in 2018, recalling his visits as a young diplomat.
In June, Wyclef Jean visited Nigeria’s capital Abuja and spoke of Fela as his “greatest African act of all time”. His 2017 track Fela Kuti sampled one of the icon’s songs Eko Ile.
“I decided to name it Fela Kuti because for me, I feel like we be thinking of [Bob] Marley, we give a lot of people from our past props, so when the kids hear Fela Kuti, I really want them to Google it. Fela Kuti studied jazz in England. Wyclef studied jazz at Vailsburg High School. Fela Kuti then went back to his country and tried to help his country by running for president. Wyclef, you know, did the same thing.
Then, Fela, through all his obstacles and all that, his music is what pillared him right back to the top. He understood the strongest way to help politically was to make sure the music was bangin’. So for me, the same way kids can have songs called ‘Wyclef Jean’ who are influenced by me, I want kids to know who Fela is and what he means,” Wyclef told XXL magazine.
This year, Fela’s 1976 classic Zombie was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, making him the first Nigerian artist to receive the honour.
For Tokini Peterside-Schwebig, Founder of ART X Lagos, the international exhibition’s arrival in Nigeria is a homecoming. “Fela’s legacy is iconic, explosive, transformational,” she says to FORBES AFRICA. “But what this exhibition does is show our young people what intention and originality look like. Success is not by luck. It’s by purpose.”
She pauses, then adds, “We’re living through another cultural explosion in Nigeria. It’s important that icons like Fela are re-centred — the originals, the originators. There is legacy. There is heritage. And that recognition must begin with us celebrating our icons for who they are.”
- https://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2025/10/16/he-cemented-his-own-legacy-fela-kutis-legacy-takes-center-stage-in-lagos