WITH Felabration 2013 coming up, have you been able to achieve the dream behind setting it up?
Definitely! We are all Nigerians and we know what it means to run a festival at that level with no cost, with no major sponsor for over 13 years. I think we have to be applauded. It’s a feat that hasn’t been achieved in Nigeria. All the great festivals we know in Nigeria have broken down. Everything doesn’t last and then it’s free. It is little or no issues with security. The security is very tight. We hear of little or no incident and with the crowd of over 10,000 people coming in, week-in week-out, I think we have to be commended. And we have to thank everybody for being peaceful. We thank the media for covering the story for us, we have to thank the musicians that perform for free, everyone that has put their little bit to make it a great success. Now Felabration is everywhere in the world especially in major cities, the world over. The event my sister started has grown.
Will Rita Marley’s child be performing?
I think we are having visa problems with him. He is not her child but one of Bob Marley’s sons. He has agreed to come and the contract has been finalized, we are awaiting his visa. If he gets his visa, that’s good. We had a number of bands coming in from America but we heard that they cannot get their passport because of the shut down. We have some Afro beat bands coming from the United States of America but with the shut down, we don’t know. However, we have some bands coming in from Ghana and of course our great Nigerian musicians like 2face, Kwam 1, Davido, Wizkid, Eedris Abdulkareem, Kennis Music and other rascals including myself will all be there.
Apart from finance, what other challenges are you encountering?
I think the major challenges are finance and security. We would love a situation where we would pay the artistes well and dictate the pace. Now the artiste will tell us what day they are free and all that but normally, what it should be is to tell the artiste when we want him to perform and pay him. But we cannot dictate the pace to the artiste when they are doing you a favour. Felabration has to bend to everybody’s rules. We hope to have a situation where we can dictate when an artiste performs. The next thing is to get the museum working. Apparently, Lagos state has bought the other land for the car park but we are still looking for major sponsors that will make the museum work properly. We have big dreams that we want to put in place, only big money can put this into motion. We have managed to keep this place tidy, clean and it is well kept without major money. Hopefully, we’ll get the car park and the guest house running before the next Felabration.
Does the Fela Broadway Show also have an input in this year’s edition?
I’m sure you know what it cost them to come last time? They are a cast of about 50. By the time you talk about their air ticket, housing them, and so on, you would know what I mean. I think it was the Lagos State Government that brought them the last time and I knew what they had to do to bring them. Eventually, what we are going to be focusing on is new talents and more bands. I will love a situation where we do not have only hip hop people miming to their tunes but we want to show the dexterity and talents Africans are gifted with. I would love to bring in more bands in the future. I think this will be the priority of Felabration.
Outside Felabration, what is the family’s stand on Fela’s biopic being packaged by an American company recently?
I don’t know about it. There are many things I don’t know about. I don’t think it’s done yet. This is a movie that has been in the works for about five years now. I’m sure you know it is not a film that they do overnight. They have to do the burning of the house, the soldiers, et al. If they are going to do a movie of that magnitude, it’s going to be a great movie. It is going to take time. They have been talking about this movie for ages now.
Does the family have any plan to do that?
No. We are only going to give them the license to do it. We have a legal team that deals with all of these things. My own duty as a member of the estate is to give the approval. I have signed the contract ages ago and I know maybe it will take another two to three years before this dream will materialize if it does. I even believe the first contract we signed for five years would have to be renewed if the film has not been completed within that time frame. When my father died, that was in the making but that contract expired, so they had to sign a new contract. And because there is no money in the music business, the family has been very lenient when discussing with all these people because, we all know about piracy. Everybody is downloading his music, so you have to be very understanding. Everybody wants to make money, so the family has had to be very cool with who is giving authority, how they give the authority. We have a good legal team handling all these for the family of course; we have to still protect the integrity of the family.
Given the status quo of the country, will you say your father has been vindicated and was misunderstood in his lifetime?
He was misunderstood for a purpose because he saw corruption and he knew what corruption was going to do and those involved with corruption wanted to get away with dictatorship and corruption which was what he was against. And because he used his own unconventional way of protesting, it didn’t go down well with the authorities. Then the authorities controlled the media up to a point until after Daily Times, when other media houses came because we have to remember that it was only government newspapers and TVs, so the story was told from the government perspective until other private news outlets and magazines started to come out helping Fela’s story to be seen from another point of view.
Are you saying that you are different specie?
I am probably more diplomatic because I have learnt from what I saw of him. First, you have to understand the political climate we live in. Let us remember who voted for Obasanjo? Except if we want to be dishonest with ourselves, Obasanjo won the first election, clean and clear. What would Fela have done if he was alive and this same Nigerians still went to vote for this same Obasanjo? Didn’t they hear Fela sing about this man? Then, it is still this same Nigerians that were criticizing this man and they know.
In his lifetime, Fela described you as a better sax player; he is master of the organ, are you honing your skills further?
I can never be better than him on the organ but definitely I will floor him on the sax. He knew it and except you are a Fela fanatic, you will not want to accept it and I’m not boasting, it’s a fact and he knew it. There are many things I can do with the sax and that is because there are many reasons why he did not get to the level I got to. The beatings first of all; Fela could not hold the sax because they broke his shoulder blade, so many people did not know he was suffering a lot of internal pain especially after 1977- the burning of the house. Fela was suffering a lot of pain; he couldn’t even hold the sax well. Like I said, the child has to learn from his father. I think I have stepped up my game and don’t forget I was not trained like Fela was trained. Fela was trained to play the piano. The piano I am playing, I am playing it like I have practiced it for 13 years but finding a voice has been a major challenge. Many people that are great pianist, you don’t hear of them because they can’t find a voice. What I have done is I have used my knowledge to find a voice even on the trumpet
How will you rate your album?
I think it is my best album without doubt. It’s a very frightful album. I have a fear that production wise, I might not be able to beat it. Production wise, it is definitely the best. It’s comparable to the Shoki Shoki album that won all the awards then. I think the last album, Africa for Africa, would have probably done as well if I had recorded it in Europe or in France but that was recorded here and we had a lot of technical issues here that the studio could not meet up with the international standard. That album, people in the Grammy saw the talent and it got nominated. If this one gets nominated again for the Grammy, I don’t know if it will win but if it gets nominated, I will definitely not be surprised. All the major critics worldwide say it is my best work.
At over 50, some people say it seems you became more sexually active?
That is not true. I am not more sexually active. I have even turned off sex a lot now. When you see a beautiful woman, when you reach my age and you have responsibility like me, you will know what I am talking about. As a young man, you would want to chase her. If you decide that in your mind, many things will come into your mind like the responsibility of catering for six children, that the girl may need a new phone, and so on. I used to take care of four children. One is going to Ife, I just paid in. One is in UNILAG, one is doing Film Directorship.
Now I have managed to take them this far, unfortunately if they were my only kids, I will be a free man; I will even be going on holidays. My son is going to University in London, I am thinking of pounds. I can tell you that the mothers of my children, we stay together, we are very serious. You could say we are husband and wife but I don’t believe in marriage. I feel we are like in a marriage situation. I just don’t understand why one man will say I pronounce you man and wife, in that case, I pronounce myself man and wife. I am very different from my father but in a lot of ways like him. Like I couldn’t understand why he married 27 wives. When he married them, he divorced them but if I told you that these women, why are you marrying them? I didn’t have a problem, my mother had a problem but we as kids didn’t have any problem with them. When the problem started in Kalakuta, for us it was fun, I just saw 27 mothers, I didn’t see 27 competitions.
