Sampling Fela music doesn’t make you him – Seun Kuti
Afrobeats singer Seun Kuti has cautioned Nigerian artists against calling themselves the “New Fela”, insisting that sampling or remixing his late father’s music does not make them equivalent to the Afrobeat legend. Speaking on the Hits Don’t Lie podcast, he said while some have done good samples of Fela’s songs, it is “crazy” for anyone to claim they are his dad simply because they use his sound. Seun pointed to big Nigerian stars like Wizkid and Burna Boy, who have sampled Fela, noting that this trend of declaring oneself a new version of a late icon seems peculiar to Nigeria. He questioned why nobody refers to themselves as “the new Bob Marley” elsewhere, arguing that such labels show how “wild” things can get in the Nigerian music scene. He stressed that Fela was not just about music but about activism, […]
