Why Fela’s daughter sheds tears for her father recently

Motunrayo Anikulapo-Kuti, one of the daughters of late music legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, has said her father trusted the wrong people while he was alive.

She took to her instagram page, @motunrayoanikulapokuti, to lash out at those she accused of telling her that her father’s money is not her money. In her words ” After all these suffering, some useless, hopeless hypocrites will tell me having my father’s money is not my money…”

According to her, the picture of Fela sent to her by a friend brought tears to her eyes and thinking about the people Fela trusted in his last days makes her angry.

During his time, Fela Kuti was outspoken; his songs spoke his inner thoughts. His rise in popularity throughout the 1970s signaled a change in the relation between music as an art form and Nigerian socio-political discourse. In 1984 Anikulapo harshly criticized and insulted the then authoritarian president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari. One of his popular songs, “Beast Of No Nation”, refers to Buhari as an animal in a madman’s body; in Nigerian Pidgin: “No be outside Buhari dey ee, na krase man be dat, animal in krase man skin ii”.

Kuti strongly believed in Africa and always preached peace among Africans. He thought the most important way for Africans to fight European cultural imperialism was to support traditional African religions and lifestyles. The American Black Power movement also influenced Fela’s political views; he supported Pan-Africanism and socialism, and called for a united, democratic African republic. Some of the famous African leaders he supported during his lifetime include Kwame Nkrumah and Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso. Kuti was a candid supporter of human rights, and many of his songs are direct attacks against dictatorships, specifically the militaristic governments of Nigeria in the 1970s and 1980s. He was also a social commentator, and he criticized his fellow Africans (especially the upper class) for betraying traditional African culture.

The African culture he believed in also included men having many wives (polygyny). The Kalakuta Republic was formed in part as a polygamist colony. In defense of polygyny he said: “A man goes for many women in the first place. Like in Europe, when a man is married, when the wife is sleeping, he goes out and fucks around. He should bring the women in the house, man, to live with him, and stop running around the streets!” Some characterize his views towards women as misogynist, and typically cite as evidence songs like “Mattress”.

In a more complex example, he mocks the aspiration of African women to European standards of ladyhood while extolling the values of the market woman in his song “Lady”. In accordance with his beliefs, Fela Kuti married multiple women at the same time in 1978.

Fela Kuti was also an outspoken critic of America. At a meeting during his 1981 Amsterdam tour, he “complained about the psychological warfare that American organizations like ITT and the CIA waged against developing nations in terms of language” He did not see why the terms ‘Third World, “undeveloped” or even worse, “Non-aligned countries” should be used, as they all implied inferiority.