2. Fela KutiUnderground System
I added this one, because I am playing one of the songs from this record right now, ‘Pansa Pansa’. Side B on the record. It was the first time I was conscious of being in the studio with my father. I had been in the studio with him many times before, but this time I was nine-years-old when they were recording this in the studio and they knew I was there. And it still influences me, the way my father recorded his group when they were in the studio. That I remember still. When I say military precision and discipline or anything, it was incredible. But he had such a huge group and when you have so many people in the studio, you had better be disciplined.
Underground System was also the last record my father made, in 1992. Fela stopped making records. He said the record industry was dead, before it was dead.
When you choose a particular song from your father’s back catalogue to include in your live set is it because you feel it suits the time that you are in?
Yes, that is one of the major factors that I consider. But also, sometimes the music just reminds me of a specific, nostalgic thing about being with my father, or maybe one of those songs I used to like as a kid, and I go, "Yeah, let’s play this." Sometimes it is sentimental, sometimes it is political. But every time, it is musical.
