Femi Kuti, the ace musician, has challenged the widely accepted narrative that late drummer Tony Allen was the co-pioneer of Afrobeat alongside his father Fela Kuti.
The debate resurfaced after The Recording Academy (Grammys) recently credited Allen as Afrobeat’s co-creator, citing his collaborations with Fela in the 1960s and 70s.
Allen, who died in 2020 at 79, was a pivotal member of Fela’s Africa ’70 band who helped shape the genre’s signature sound — a fusion of West African rhythms and American jazz.
However, Femi has argued that his father was the sole visionary behind Afrobeat, composing every element of the music himself.
In a now-trending video, the ace singer claimed that Allen’s management is promoting the false narrative about his role in the genre.
Femi described Fela’s creative process, saying that his father would work on a song for weeks or months, transforming it multiple times before recording.
He emphasised that Fela wouldn’t allow anyone to infiltrate his music and that Allen was taught his drumming style by Fela himself.
My father was the most instrumental, a composer. He studied music. He knew every single part of his instrument. You probably have heard that they said he said that ‘without Tony Allen, he was nothing.’ That is the biggest, excuse me, bullshit ever said of my father. It is such a big lie. They decided to sell Tony Allen, he said.
Yes, he was a good drummer. But Fela taught him his style of drums. Fela came up with all his drum patterns. Everything. We saw it. I was a child, a teenager. Fela owned the pattern.
I keep asking them, which songs did Fela tell you to play? He couldn’t, because there was no song. That Fela would say, ‘Hey, put the drum pattern for me’. Impossible. You could not.
Photo: Chiaki Nozu/WireImage
When Fela was writing, a pin dropped. And then he would say, you have an idea in his composition, impossible. He looked and looked.
When Fela arrives in rehearsals, everywhere changes. When Fela arrived, there was complete silence. You couldn’t, you couldn’t call your friend. He goes into a kind of trance. And then everybody’s waiting to hear the melody and the rhythms.
And the way Fela used to work is he would call the drummer, the guitar, the rhythm guitar, the tenor guitar, the percussion, and the bass. And then, when he plays this for about a week, he would call the singers for a while. Then he would call the horns.
And then he builds the music slowly. It takes him probably two weeks, three weeks. Then he prints this for about two to three years before recording the music.
He transforms so many times. And we all are there witnessing this musical transformation. When Fela records the song, he never plays it again.
Femi accused Allen’s management and international media of rewriting history to elevate the drummer’s legacy.
The 62-year-old musician also emphasised his duty to preserve Afrobeat’s true origins.
So when they are lying. So I asked them, where? There was a journalist in America who went on social media and said a lot of nasty things, thinking I am jealous of Tony Allen’s music. I am just correcting the facts. I love Tony Allen. What his crew and his management have been lying, he said.
And if we don’t let the youths know the truth, then we distort history. So it is for me to tell the audience and those of us who know the truth about who and how Fela worked.
Show me the actual truth. Don’t say Fela said. Where is the magazine? What date? Bring it out. Where is the tape? Where is the recording? I will keep my mouth shut. So I asked the journalist, where is it? Till today, five years, I am still waiting for him to produce. He says he’s looking for it.
Is it that difficult? Is it that difficult to find that a great, iconic guy like Fela, who says such a huge statement and the whole world will not go, wow!
