Popular music includes many musical dynasties, from Bob Marley’s musical children (including Damian, Stephen, and Ziggy) to Jakob Nowell taking up the mantle of Sublime from his later father, Bradley and the generations-deep Cash–Carter clan. Yet very few dynasties are united like the Kutis, who for the past 50 years have carried the torch of Afrobeat and its burning battle against the powers that be.
The central figure of the family is Fela Kuti. The Nigerian musician and activist pioneered Afrobeat in the 1960s and 70s, an ambitious merger of African styles such as Yoruba and calypso with funk, jazz, and rock. Alone and through his bands Afrika 70 and Egypt 80, Fela’s combination primed the Western palette for African styles. In the ensuing decades, Fela’s efforts have reverberated on the continent and beyond, influencing the formation of Afrobeats and other popular genres like Afro house.
Several of Fela’s seven children played in his bands and, following their father’s passing in 1997, have sustained the Afrobeat sound and messaging via their own musical projects. Eldest son Femi started his own band, while Fela’s youngest son Seun performs with Egypt 80. Fela’s daughter, Yeni, launched multiple physical monuments to her father’s life, including the Kalakuta Museum, New Afrika Shrine, and an annual music festival called Felabration in Lagos.
Fela was a revolutionary figure — both musically and politically — and had a complex relationship with his children. Fela often prioritized his music career over his family, and married 27 women. He was jailed several times and hospitalized after being beaten by soldiers and police for engaging in anti-government activities (including vocal condemnation of the government in his music and his many marriages).
For all of his complexities, Fela’s children have expressed pride in carrying on his legacy in activism and music. In 2025, Fela’s work was inducted into the GRAMMY Hall of Fame.
“[Fela] had this battle with the government, they kept beating him. He came out stronger, he came out fighting. His courage, his bravery, the pain he went through – after all that, I could forgive my personal grievances with him,” Femi (born Olufela Olufemi Anikulapo-Kuti) told the Guardian. “His music alone was superb, he was a genius.”
“His philosophy was based on ideas of African unity and of being a proud African and about Black people believing in themselves,” said Omoyeni Anikulapo-Kuti, a.k.a. Yeni. “His influence has made me who I am, a proud Black African person.”
“Being an African artist, growing up with my father’s music, my father’s music is always No. 1 for me,” Seun (born Oluseun Anikulapo Kuti) said in an interview for his second album, A Long Way to the Beginning. Femi’s son, Ọmọ́rìnmádé Aníkúlápó Kútì, a.k.a Mádé also told the Guardian, “He did significantly more good than he did anything controversial.”
With both Femi and Seun on tour, and Mádé’s debut album (Chapter 1: Where Does Happiness Come From?) recently released, get to know the musical members of the Kuti-verse.
Fela
Fela Kuti was born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti on Oct. 15, 1938.
Fela was born into a revolutionary household. His mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, was a prominent civil rights activist in Nigeria who won the International Lenin Peace Prize. In 1947, she led the Abeokuta Women’s Revolt, condemning unfair taxation of the Abeokuta region by the Nigerian government.
Fela followed in his parents’ defiant footsteps. When they sent him to Trinity College, London in 1958 to study medicine, Fela rebelled and studied music instead. There, Fela formed Koola Lobitos; the band performed a more tame coalescence of African music and Western jazz popular in London at the time. “It’s Highlife Time” shares the energy of big band with tinges of African rhythm.
Fela maintained Koola Lobitos from 1963 until 1969 when he toured the United States, forming a relationship with the Black power activist Sandra Smith in Los Angeles. She introduced him to the philosophies of activists such as Malcolm X, Angela Davis, and Frantz Fanon.
“Sandra gave me the education I wanted to know,” Fela told Michael Veal in the book Fela: The Life And Times Of An African Musical Icon. “For the first time, I heard things I’d never heard before about Africa! Sandra … taught me what she knew, and what she knew was enough for me to start on.”
Upon his return to Africa, Fela launched the Afrobeat movement through music and action. He changed the name of Koola Lobitos to Nigeria 70, then Afrika 70, emphasizing his commitment to his homeland. Fela also began writing lyrics that protested issues such as government corruption and apartheid. He also sang in pidgin English, enabling a wide swath of African listeners to understand his message outside of the continent’s extensive local dialects. To ensure freedom of expression, he rejected sponsorships from business magnates and politicians — unlike most prominent Nigerian musicians at the time.
Fela’s work in the early ’70s was inspired by experimentation — both in Africa and beyond. Pulling from a variety of African musical traditions, and exposure to rock, blues, funk, and jazz in the U.S., Fela brought together his multigenre exposure and his unhindered messages, to create Afrobeat. Fela released dozens of albums with Afrika 70, including the celebrated Roforofo Fight (1972), Shakara (1972), Gentleman (1973), Expensive S— (1975), and Zombie (1977). The latter album was inducted into the GRAMMY Hall of Fame.
The extended runtimes (many songs are over 10 minutes long) rejected radio-friendly songform while supporting Fela’s activist messaging. Fela often began songs with extensive instrumental sections, where high-pressure swells of energetic, unhindered improvisation led into repeated protest lyrics.
Fela’s sound and messages of institutional defiance resonated far beyond Nigeria, earning praise from a variety of his contemporaries. Bootsy Collins recalled seeing Fela in 1970, telling Rolling Stone that Fela was “just mind-blowing. What he brought was just so powerful.” Fela also collaborated with a variety of Western artists. Among his many genre-defining recordings is a 1971collaboration with legendary drummer Ginger Baker, “Let’s Start”; Baker’s jazz-forward chops easily layer into the shuffling, non-backbeat style established by Fela’s longtime drummer Tony Allen. That would be far from the last time Fela partnered with a Western artist; 1980’s Music of Many Colours gave dual billing to jazz innovator Roy Ayers, whose vibraphone added to the blend of improvisation crucial to many Afrobeat recordings.
As Fela developed Afrobeat, he built establishments dedicated to the movement. The first was the Kalakuta Republic, opened in 1970. This communal compound served as the home of Fela, his children, Afrika 70, and his 27 wives (most of whom were dancers, composers, and singers associated with his band). Kalakuta was also a recording studio and a free health clinic run by his brother, Dr. Beko Kuti. In 1972, Fela opened the first Afrika Shrine as an Afrobeat nightclub in Nigeria.
In another act of defiance, Fela declared the Kalakuta Republic an independent state, free from the laws of the military dictatorship that ruled Nigeria at the time. Of course the Nigerian government wasn’t thrilled; it was ruffled even further when Fela released Zombie, the title track of which described Nigerian soldiers who violently enforced the government’s draconian policies as brainless, indiscriminate murderers.
Not long after “Zombie” was released, the Nigerian government raided Kalakuta and burned it to the ground. They made numerous arrests, savagely beat Fela, destroyed his recordings and instruments, and even threw his mother out an upper-story window, causing injuries that resulted in her death a short time later. The Afrika Shrine was raided numerous times as well, causing it to be eventually closed.
The Kalakuta Republic was soon rebuilt and Fela once again took it up as his home, as he had no intention of lessening his revolutionary profile. In 1983, he nominated himself for president of Nigeria, earning him the nickname of “The Black President” (his bid was unsuccessful).
Around this time, Fela also started his new band, Egypt 80. The name emphasized that the advancements of ancient Egyptian society were part of African history. In 1989, Egypt 80 recorded the anti-apartheid album Beasts of No Nation, which featured a single 28-minute epic title track with a subtle underlying beat. Its cover depicted U.S. President Ronald Reagan, U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and South African State President Pieter Willem Botha as demons, showing in no uncertain terms that Fela compares oppressive regimes to ravenous, demonic animals.
After several years of sparse releases, more arrests, and a campaign to legalize marijuana, Fela passed away in 1997. Today, his music is still being paralleled with modern movements in
Africa, and he continues to receive accolades. Rolling Stone included him on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time in 2023, and the musical “Fela!” was written with his songs. Afrobeat lives on not only through his children, but through artists like Antibalas, the Chilean group Newen Afrobeat, and the Brazilian all-female band, Funmilayo Afrobeat Orquestra.
Yeni
Yeni Kuti is Fela’s eldest child, born in London in 1961 when he was studying music at Trinity College. Though she doesn’t have solo recordings to her name, she sang and danced in Egypt 80 as well as brother Femi’s Positive Force.
Yeni’s more prominent contributions to the Kuti legacy lie in establishing Felabration and the New Afrika Shrine. After witnessing a reported 1 million people attend her father’s funeral in 1997, she put in motion plans to ensure Fela lived on.
In 1998, she launched the festival Felabration, a week-long event held in conjunction with Fela’s birthday. Felabration now includes a symposium, a debate series, a dance contest, and art exhibitions and competitions. The first two editions were held at Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos, where Fela laid in state. Then in 2000, she and Femi opened the New Afrika Shrine, where Felabration has taken place since.
At the time Nigeria was ruled by Obasanjo, the same leader who ordered the raid on the Kalakuta Republic. The idea of government sabotage of New Afrika Shrine was not unlikely. But Yeni, like her father, was not afraid to stand up to the government.
“We weren’t concerned,” Yeni said in Open Country Mag. “We were just ready, nothing was going to stop us. We knew they’d try, but there was a legacy that nothing could make us deviate from.”
However, Yeni was also willing to work with the government. As the second Kalakuta Republic deteriorated following Fela’s death, Yeni asked the Governor of Lagos state to secure funds to maintain it. Despite Fela’s history with the Nigerian government, Babatunde Fashola provided $250,000 to convert the building into the Kalakuta Museum on Fela’s birthday in 2012. Today, Fela’s son Kunle manages the museum, which features exhibits and artefacts from Fela’s life and work.
Femi
Femi Kuti was born in London in 1962, the full brother of Yeni. Both he and his sister have retained administrative roles within their father’s legacy; Femi manages Fela’s catalog and also co-manages the New Afrika Shrine.
Femi is also a musical powerhouse and six-time GRAMMY nominee. He performed in Afrika 70 and then Egypt 80, recording saxophone on albums such as Authority Stealing (1980), I.T.T. International Thief Thief (1980), Original Sufferhead (1981), and Live In Amsterdam (1983). Femi even briefly led Egypt 80 while Fela was imprisoned on made-up charges of currency smuggling in 1984.
Femi started his own Afrobeat project, Positive Force, in 1986. The band retains the genre’s musical qualities of Fela’s invention, including rabid improvisation and ambitious genre blends. Femi’s songs are generally much shorter, lasting from three to seven minutes — a more digestible rendition for modern audiences. Femi and his band have released five GRAMMY-nominated albums: Fight to Win (2001), Day by Day (2008), Africa For Africa (2011), No Place For My Dream (2013), and Legacy + (2021). The latter is a double album. Mádé’s LP, For(e)ward, serves as the second half.
Femi also continued his father’s tradition of working with Western musicians, combining Afrobeat with another prominent protest genre: rap. Mos Def features on “Do Your Best,” leaning into his interest in African stylings on hits like “Umi Says.” Common opens “Missing Link” by appealing to rap’s African roots and the commentary culture of both genres: “We listen to our ancestors. We listen to the universe. There’s a lot going on/It’s chaos. Everywhere. He is coming, so prepare, man.”
In 2002, Femi recorded a cover of his father’s “Water Get No Enemy” alongside D’Angelo, Nile Rodgers, Macy Gray, and Roy Hargrove. The track was part of the compilation to benefit AIDS research, Red Hot + Riot: The Music and Spirit of Fela Kuti. (Fela died from complications due to AIDS.)
Femi’s activism both in and outside of music spans many issues. Speaking about his 2018 album One People One World, Femi emphasized the urgency of addressing climate change: “There’s so much hate and so much misunderstanding. In terms of climate change, for instance, if we don’t all understand we’re one people living on one planet, we’re going to be in big trouble, as we’re already seeing.”
Seun
GRAMMY nominee Seun Kuti was born in Lagos in 1983. By the time he was 8 years old, he was performing with Egypt 80. When his father passed six years later, he took over the band.
“I didn’t save Fela’s band,” Seun said. “I just kept it going…. When he told me this he knew he didn’t have much time left, he could feel it in his body. I was young, so I didn’t fully understand at the time, but I promised him that I would keep the band going.”
The band now performs as Seun Kuti & Egypt 80. Their 2008 debut album, Many Things, is a pure honoring of Afrobeat, with each song averaging over seven minutes and adhering to Fela’s structure of improvisation leading into protest lyrics like on “African Problems.”
From Africa With Fury: Rise (2011), Egypt 80’s second album under Seun’s leadership, channeled Fela’s affinity for expansion. Seun tapped innovative musicians like the NYC producer Jacques Renault and the Scottish DJ JD Twitch to rework his Afrobeat jams into rave-ready versions. Renault’s remix of “Slave Masters” layers African percussion rhythms over a dance beat, strategically inserting instances of horns and shouts expanded with reverb and echo to build a dense, hypnotic soundscape.
Seun kept up the trend of remixing his songs on 2014’s A Long Way to the Beginning, calling upon producers and DJs like DJ Logic and the modern jazz maestro Robert Glasper. Glasper helped produce the original rendition of the album and Seun’s follow-up (2018’sGRAMMY-nominated Black Times), but neither record veered heavily into Glasper’s hip-hop jazz. They remained firmly within Afrobeat, although Carlos Santana brought his silky Latin flavor to “Black Times.”
Seun and Egypt 80 have played major festivals including Coachella and Glastonbury. They were also featured on Janelle Monáe’s Afrofuturistic album, The Age of Pleasure, which received a GRAMMY nomination for Album Of The Year Year.
On Seun’s newest album, Heavier Yet (Lays The Crownless Head) (2024), he collaborated with modern purveyors of world music like Sampa The Great and his fellow dynastian Damian Marley. But he’s also maintained his connection to Afrobeat by working with new names in that realm, such as the Chilean group Newen Afrobeat on their cover of Fela’s song “Opposite People.”
Mádé
Femi’s son Mádé Kuti was born in Lagos in 1995. After years of playing in Positive Force, he followed in Fela’s footsteps to study music in London at Trinity Laban (the current name of Trinity College of Music). Here he learned trumpet, saxophone, bass, keyboards, and drums. He plays all of these on his solo recordings as he continues Femi’s trend of condensing the wild, extended tradition of Afrobeat into more succinct songforms.
Mádé brings cleaner vocals to the genre; his smooth style naturally lends itself to the kind of inflection commonly heard on U.S. pop radio. Where Fela’s delivery was pointed and direct, Mádé holds notes with vibrato and lets the phrases take on their own melodic life. This makes his activist messaging clear and vibrant, as on his first-ever single, “Free Your Mind.”
Many elements of Mádé’s career align with his relatives. He formed his own band, the Movement, and he’s ventured into multi-genre collaborations (including with Coldplay alongside his father on “Arabesque“).
Mádé released his first solo album, Chapter 1: Where Does Happiness Come From?, in July 2025. Throughout, he demonstrates his individual musicianship and connection to his roots. Seven-minute-long lead single “I Won’t Run Away” combines the epic jams Fela passed down with a grander vocal section that demonstrates Mádé’s own singing style. Second single “Life As We Know It” breaks from Fela’s traditions with a standard verse-chorus format layered over shuffled African dance rhythms and expert horn players.
In press materials, Mádé detailed how the song came to be:, “I was driving with my wife in the car thinking about how funny life’s excesses can be. I asked her to play a rhythmic pattern on the passenger side dashboard as I started writing the song in my head, and I thoroughly enjoyed the direction it took.”
Fela Kuti’s legacy is still moving in multiple directions. While Mádé moves it forward with drum beats made from car interiors, Seun is taking it to Coachella, Femi is uniting it with hip-hop, and Yeni is preserving it in Africa. But no matter how disparate these directions may end up, they all channel the intentions Fela set forth over 60 years ago with Afrobeat.
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