Tour Dates
4/15 - Coachella - Indio, CA
Read More4/16 - Campbell Hall - Santa Barbara, CA 4/18 - UC San Diego - San Diego, CA 4/19 - Zellerbach Hall - Berkeley, CA 4/20 - UCLA Royce Hall - Los Angeles, CA 4/22 - Coachella - Indio, CA 4/24 - KTAOS Solar Center - Taos, NM 4/25 - Albuquerque Museum Amp - Albuq, NM 4/27 - New Orleans Jazz Fest - LA 4/29 - Houston Internat'l Festival - TX 5/02 - House of Blues - New Orleans 5/13 - Lake Eden Arts Festival - NC Seun Kuti Seun Kuti is the son of Nigerian musician Fela Kuti . Like his father before him, Kuti took up music and even leading his father's band Egypt 80! |
It was a sold-out show at the Walker Art/Vita.MN/Best Buy/The Current presentation of Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 at the Cedar Cultural Center* in Minneapolis. The band is huge, fifteen players, including several sax, several trumpets, conga, two women dancers/backup singers, and a shekere (this is a dried gourd with beads) player.
Just to give you a little background, Seun Kuti is heavily influenced by his father's work. Even at the age of 14, Seun Kuti, took over as lead singer of Egypt 80, when his father, Fela, passed away in 1997. As I have previously written, Fela pioneered Afrobeat. Just as his father before him, Seun seems quite interested in human rights and political issues in his home country of Nigeria.
Most of the current Egypt 80 band was in the original Fela lineup, so as you can guess, they're mostly at least in their fifties. As for the music, it's Afrobeat, basically lots of African rhythmic beat and funk. The trumpets and saxophones gave their music a big brass sound.
Before Seun came on stage, his band was warming up the crowd by introducing the band members and horsing around on stage. By the time Seun came on stage, two songs were already played. Officially they started with a Fela Kuti song, to pay for respect for the man.
He did a few songs from his new album, From Africa With Fury: Rise, including the title track, "Rise" (with a three minute rant about the banks and credit swap and money crisis).
Highlight of the show was "Plant and Grow", which Seun opened up a water bottle and proceeded to water the stage!
Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 will be performing at Coachella today, you can watch it live on youtube! From Africa With Fury: Rise and its companion EP, From Africa With Fury: Rise REMIXES are both out now on Knitting Factory Records.
* PS, The Cedar was the perfect venue to house this large band and historically, the venue has always supported world music (can't see this band playing at a dive bar or a tiny place like 7th Street Entry).
Just to give you a little background, Seun Kuti is heavily influenced by his father's work. Even at the age of 14, Seun Kuti, took over as lead singer of Egypt 80, when his father, Fela, passed away in 1997. As I have previously written, Fela pioneered Afrobeat. Just as his father before him, Seun seems quite interested in human rights and political issues in his home country of Nigeria.
Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 at Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis (04/14/12)
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Before Seun came on stage, his band was warming up the crowd by introducing the band members and horsing around on stage. By the time Seun came on stage, two songs were already played. Officially they started with a Fela Kuti song, to pay for respect for the man.
He did a few songs from his new album, From Africa With Fury: Rise, including the title track, "Rise" (with a three minute rant about the banks and credit swap and money crisis).
Highlight of the show was "Plant and Grow", which Seun opened up a water bottle and proceeded to water the stage!
Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 will be performing at Coachella today, you can watch it live on youtube! From Africa With Fury: Rise and its companion EP, From Africa With Fury: Rise REMIXES are both out now on Knitting Factory Records.
* PS, The Cedar was the perfect venue to house this large band and historically, the venue has always supported world music (can't see this band playing at a dive bar or a tiny place like 7th Street Entry).