‘The biggest mistake my father made’ – Femi Kuti

Femi Kuti, the eldest son of Afrobeat pioneer and political activist Fela Kuti, inherited his father’s zeal for both music and activism.

He started playing the saxophone and keyboard with his father’s band when he was 16 and stepped into the spotlight, writing and singing after his father’s demise.

Till date, Femi remains politically inclined and still sings about political corruption, poverty and primitive living conditions suffered by Nigerians.

In this exclusive chat with Thenetng, Femi takes us through what he calls his late father’s biggest mistake while he was alive.

‘My father channelled his energy into fighting corruption and injustice, but then, he made a great mistake as well. Everyone else was more important that his family. I would never put anybody before my family, because nobody will do the same for me. My children can’t go into any of your homes and you’ll answer them before your own children. For example, back then I’ll want to have a word with my dad but he’ll say ‘tell me what ever you want to say here’, right in front of anybody and everybody with him. Now, intelligence tell me today that back then a lot of the people around my father were SSS who always went back to tell the government his plans and what was going on in his family, so we were really out on the spot,’ he said.

He continued, ‘Then the SSS were always parked in front of our house, you’ll see a man parked from 7 a.m. till 7 p.m. reading newspapers and watching our house all day. My mother used to be scared back then because it was easy to hurt my father by hurting his kids, but I guess the government saw that he didn’t pay much attention to his children, so if they had hurt us, it wouldn’t have stopped him from doing and saying what he wanted, it would have fuelled his energy the more.’