Seun Kuti & Egypt 80

Tickets are $26 in advance, $29 day of show (plus a $1 service charge).  Kids 12 and under are only $9 (plus the $1 service charge).  A limited number of 6-top tables are available for $300 (incuding 6 tickets) or $53 a table seat.

Tickets are also available through Hold My Ticket (112 2nd St SW), 505-886-1251, Monday to Friday, 11 AM-6 PM. 

THE African concert of the year!  This is Fela's band, 15+ people on stage.  The show is incendiary.  

- Traditional African food will be available for purchase from Albuquerque's new African restaurant - Talking Drums!  You can also get tapas, salads and snacks from Slate at the Museum and a cash bar will be available.

- KUNM & KSFR DJ Ijah recorded an extended interview with Seun Kuti.  He'll be airing portions of it and playing Seun and Fela music on his various shows.  Look for it on KUNM's Iyah Music show on April 12 & 19 between 7 and 10 pm and also on KSFR's Soul Notes on April 13 and 20 between 8 and 10 pm.

Seun Anikulapo Kuti [web site | Amazon.com] heads up Egypt 80, the extraordinary combo first fronted by his renowned father. Seun and Egypt 80's extraordinary power, fraught with scorching rhythms and kinetic funk energy, has earned the band worldwide acclaim as one of today's most incendiary live acts. With Kuti's booming vocal stylings at the forefront, songs like "African Soldiers" and "Mr. Big Thief" are fueled by call-and-response hooks, breakneck tempos, and combative, topical lyricism which firmly sets the classic Egypt 80 sound in the modern era. 

In the fall of 2010, Kuti made two visits to London where he mixed his new album, From Africa With Fury: Rise, alongside legendary producers Brian Eno and John Reynolds. Eno - an avowed fan who had previously invited Kuti and his band to perform at Sydney's Luminous Festival 2009 and the UK's Brighton Festival 2010 - has nothing but the highest praise for Seun and his band, hailing them for "making some of the biggest, wildest, livest music on the planet." 

Born in 1983, Seun first began performing with Egypt 80 at the age of nine, warming up audiences with renditions of his father's songs. After Fela's death in 1997, Seun stepped up to the front of the band, leading the celebrated combo as both lead vocalist and saxophonist. While his father's influence cannot be understated, Kuti was determined to cut his own distinctive musical path, incorporating contemporary influences into the traditional Afrobeat approach. 

"What inspires me is the time that I live in," Kuti says. "Basically what is happening today in Africa are the same things that were happening 40 years ago, when my father was songwriting, but they're happening in different ways. So when I write my music, it's from the perspective of a 27-year-old man living in 2011, instead of a 30-year-old man living in the 1970s." 

Sadly, Kuti finds himself challenging many of the same injustices his father fought in his heyday, from corporate greedheads to militaristic leaders to the ever-futile war on drugs. Perhaps the album's most unequivocal battle cry is the blistering "Rise," in which Kuti impels listeners to fight "the petroleum companies" that "use our oil to destroy our land," "the diamond companies" that "use our brothers as slaves for the stone," and "companies like "Monsanto and Halliburton" which "use their food to make my people hungry." But where Fela's work often featured an explicit call to revolution, Seun's goal is subtler. He sees his role as that of an educator, speaking truth to power in order to provoke awareness and debate throughout his beloved homeland. 

"In Africa today, most people are struggling in silence," Kuti says. "The systematic oppression of the people has made them blinded to their reality. Everybody's just thinking about survival. Nobody wants to stand up for anything, everybody just wants to tow the line. So I'm trying to make people think about these things that they are forgetting. I want to inspire people to want things to change." 

Seun Kuti is determined to speak to the new generation of young Africans born after his father's glory days. If he learned but one lesson from Fela, it is that that no one has greater impact on hearts and mind than the true artist. As such, the powerhouse protest music found on From Africa With Fury: Rise serves as a kind of musical antidote to the corporate pop that he feels is polluting Africa's airwaves, distracting its citizens from the things that truly matter. 

"Music has great impact on people's feelings," Kuti says. "That's what music should be. Pop music today is all about me, me, me. Nobody is singing about we. But nothing can change if we don't look out for our brothers and sisters."