Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti has posthumously received a Grammy for lifetime achievement. He is the first African musician to receive this award.
The fact that a musician founded a musical style should be enough to secure it a place in music history. If he also influenced musicians around the world, that is another reason to give him due credit. Both apply to the Nigerian musician Fela Kuti. Fela Kuti developed highlife, jazz and funk in the early 1970s Afrobeat. Its delicate polyphonic groove is electrified with sometimes striking accents.
Together with his band Nigeria 70, which he later renamed Pan-African Mission Africa 70, he created an immense body of work of over 50 albums, including Afrobeat classics such as “Afrodisiac” (1973), “Gentleman” (1973) and “Zombie (1976)”.
For his work and lasting influence, Kuti posthumously received the Grammy for Lifetime Achievement on Saturday in Los Angeles, at a ceremony on the eve of the actual Grammy gala. Fela Kulti is the first African musician to receive this award.
The future of music
One of Kuti’s early international fans was the British musician and producer Brian Eno. When he heard the record “Afrodisiac” for the first time in the 1970s, it was clear to him that this was “the future of music”. This was soon reflected in the sound of Eno’s own music or bands he produced such as the Talking Heads.
The Afrobeat created by Fela Kuti also forms the template for today Afrobeats, which dominates Nigeriawhich combine African rhythms with electronic pop. Kuti was no longer able to experience this development himself; he died of AIDS in 1997.
Kuti’s cousin Yemisi Ransome was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying that the award was “a celebration for the African people” and that they should consider the award as their own. “But we also want to send a message to those who give this recognition: Please (…) don’t wait until people have died.”
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