Afrobeat musician Femi Kuti has said he feels deeply irritated when people link him with support for former President Muhammadu Buhari or President Bola Tinubu.
He made the remark during an interview on Arise Television while reacting to the posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award given to his late father, Fela Anikulapo Kuti.
Femi described the honour as global recognition of a man who spent his life boldly confronting dictatorship, corruption, and injustice in Nigeria and across Africa.
According to him, the award has generated widespread excitement and carries strong emotional and historical meaning, especially for those who lived through the era of military rule that shaped Fela’s music and activism.
“Everybody is very happy and excited,” Femi said. “I’m in Los Angeles right now, and it’s hard to explain what my father did unless you lived through the 1970s, when he challenged military dictatorship in Nigeria. People were genuinely afraid of the military.”
He recalled the repeated raids on Fela’s home and the lasting impact of state violence on his family.
“It was raid after raid. The burning of Kalakuta. My grandmother was thrown from a window and later died from her injuries,” he said.
Femi explained that growing up in that period was traumatic for Fela’s children, who constantly feared his arrest.
“We never knew when he would be arrested or released. It was arrest after arrest,” he added.
He stressed that Fela’s music is inseparable from Nigeria’s political history, noting that his father deliberately transformed his sound into a tool of resistance.
“You have to understand how his music evolved,” he said. “From the 1960s, with songs like Lady and Shakara, to the point where he became fully political. He confronted one regime after another. That was his life.”
When asked how Fela might have responded to Nigeria’s current political situation, Femi strongly rejected claims linking him or his family to political leaders his father openly opposed.
“When people say I supported Buhari, that lie irritates me,” he said.
“When they say I campaigned for Tinubu, it hurts me personally. As Fela’s son, it is impossible for us to support any government that is not for the people, especially governments he fought against—those who beat, arrested, or jailed him.”
Femi said the Grammy recognition reflects decades of work by the Kuti family and the global Afrobeat community to keep Fela’s legacy alive.
“My elder sister, my brother Seun, my son Made, and the rest of the family have all played our part,” he said. “Musicians keep playing his music. People study it. Afrobeat artists today are inspired by him. Many even sample his work.”
He added that the award goes beyond the family.
“To cap it with one of the world’s biggest honours, the Grammys, what more can we ask for?” he said. “But this is not just for us. Fela belonged to many people. That’s why we say ‘our father’. He was a voice for the voiceless in the 1970s and 1980s.”
