femi and sahr on broadway

Femi Anikulapo Kuti couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see Fela!,”the hit Broadway musical about the life of his father, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the creator of the Afrobeat sound- but he had to reach a truce with the producers of the Tony-winning show that the play must come to Lagos. The guarantee he had been lobbying to hear.

After the producers agreed that they would bring the play to Lagos, on Tuesday 6th June 2010 he eventually made his way to the Eugene O’Neill Theater and watched his own family’s complicated history unfold on stage.

Femi Kuti had vowed to see “Fela!” only if the show was brought to Lagos, where in the 1970s Fela built a nightclub and residential compound to perform music and criticize the corruption and human rights abuses of Nigeria’s military rulers.

But arriving in New York from a show in Philadelphia, he ended up watching the soccer World Cup final with Stephen Hendel, who co-conceived and produced “Fela!”.

During the game, “I made him a promise that the show will go to Lagos,” Mr. Hendel explained and I’m glad We kept to keep our word.”

Upon arrival, Femi closely studied the set, modeled after the Shrine, his father’s nightclub. From his seat, he sang quietly along with Sahr Ngaujah, who played the role of Fela, on some songs, and clapped his hands or moved his feet to others.

“It’s very emotional,” Femi said between acts. “I’ve been crying. It takes me way back” to episodes both pleasant and traumatic, such as the death of his grandmother and the destruction of the family and band compound in 1977. “I’m impressed,” he added. “It’s an excellent play.”

By then, Nigerians and Afro-beat fans in the audience had recognized Femi and were seeking both his autograph and his comments on a variety of social and political subjects.

When asked if he was upset that some of father’s songs have been shortened or rearranged for the show, he emphatically said no. “It has to be presented to the American public the American way,” he said. “The play is fantastic.”

He contrasted that with what he implied was censorship in his native country that has kept an accurate account of his father’s life from being. “Americans are seeing the story,” he said. “Nigerians should be seeing the story too.”

femi mobbed by fans

At the end of the show, cast members came out into the audience to embrace and kiss Femi Wiping tears from his eyes, he then joined the cast on stage, made a plea for African solidarity and the unity of black people around the world, hugged Mr. Ngaujah and Lillias White, the actress playing his grandmother Funmilayo, bowed in the direction of the band, sang a few bars with Mr. Ngaujah and then followed him offstage, where more tears flowed.

The Nigerian version of the Broadway musical was produced by a Nigerian Production company, Broken Shackles, with the assistance of the Lagos State Government, the entire Broadway production, consisting of over 80 cast members and crew, as well as 19 tons of equipment, were transported to Lagos to present the show.

According to Stephen Hendel, the originator and producer of the original Broadway production, this is only the second time in the history of Broadway than an entire Broadway cast has been transported to a foreign country to perform a show, and is the first time a Broadway cast has performed in Africa.

After a single performance of a concert version of the show at the New Africa Shrine, where they were joined onstage by Femi Kuti, Fela’s eldest son and Afrobeat bandleader, the full version of the Broadway show opened on Thursday 20th April 2011 at the Eko Center, a conference hall converted to a theater for the purposes of the show.

The Eko Center was filled almost to capacity for opening night. Many luminaries were in attendance, including Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Former Governor of Lagos State, Ahmed Tinubu, His Excellency Babatunde Fashola, the current Governor of Lagos State, and many other Nigerian politicians and members of Nigeria’s musical, artistic, and fashion communities. In remarks from on stage before the show, Senator Tinubu spoke of how he became absolutely determined to bring the show to Nigeria after seeing the show on Broadway on Broadway in New York, stressing that he thought it was reason for great optimism that a show such as FELA!, which in parts is openly critical of the Nigerian government and power structure, could be presented freely and openly in Nigeria, particularly as it opened just days after the Nigerian Presidential election.

Response to the show was overwhelmingly positive, both from the public and the critics. It was immediately obvious that the audience was not a New York or London audience. Being more familiar with Fela’s life-story and music, they joined in on many of the songs, picked up on many of the jokes quickly, and seemed to particularly empathize with those parts of the dealing with Fela’s struggles with the government.

Lillias White, who plays Fela’s mother Fumilayo in the show, was moved to tears when, within one bar of starting to sing Fela’s song “Trouble Sleep”, the whole audience joined in and sang the entire song with her. Many members of the audience also expressed astonishment that the American musicians in the show, many of whom are from the Afro-beat band Antibalas, could perform Fela’s music with such skill and passion.

Of course, much of the audience’s reaction to the show depended on their response to Sahr Ngaujah who played Fela. Whatever skepticism they might have had about a non-Nigerian playing the role of their national hero seemed to vanish with the first “Yeah Yeah”, and at the end of the show he was greeted with a standing ovation.

For many of the cast members, variously of African-American, African living in America, and Afro-Caribbean descent, performing in Africa and in Fela’s hometown of Lagos was a tremendously emotional experience with many of them describing it as one of the most moving events of their lives.