Seun Kuti on Apple Music: Talks about New Album ‘Heavier Yet (Lays The Crownless Head),’ collabo with Damian Marley, Others

Ebro Darden calls up Afrobeats icon Seun Kuti to talk about his new project ‘Heavier Yet (Lays The Crownless Head)’, what it took to bring the Kuti and Marley legacies together on one track for the very first time in history, and more.

Key quotes below. Please credit The Ebro Show on Apple Music 1.

Listen to the full episode anytime on demand with an Apple Music subscription HERE.

Seun Kuti tells Apple Music about collaborating with Damian Marley

Seun Kuti: Oh, man. I met Damian the first time in Oni. We met at the backstage of a concert somewhere in France. I remember it was a concert called Euro Cairns or something long time ago. And then the vibe has always been real since then. This time was just like light bulb moment. And I have to give credit to my manager for that. The Kutis and Marleys have never made music. How weird is that? And our fathers both stood for the same thing with their music, they sang to and for the restoration of our people’s dignity, gave us something to hold on to at our lowest. And it was kind of weird that these two giants never made music and three generations did because my elder brother Ziggy as well has been on it. And yeah, it’s been that way for how many years now.

Ebro Darden: Right.

Seun Kuti: So this was just that opportunity to make history, to make it happen that everybody
knows that for sure this has happened. We’ve done it. The Kutis and Marleys have made music. And when I asked Brother Damian, he was really down with it. It wasn’t even as complicated as we would think. I just sent him the whole album. He loved it. And he picked this track and the rest as they say is history.

Ebro Darden: Oh, so you already had Dey cut and he just jumped on and added his part?

Seun Kuti: Yeah, did his thing. We kind of had to work the arrangements a bit to fit his vision of the sound, but other than that, yeah. And he went and surprised me by picking Dey. I thought we were going to pick something else.

Seun Kuti tell Apple Music about the meaning behind his song “Emi Aluta,” recorded with Sampa the Great

Seun Kuti: Emi is the Yoruba word for spirit, and the song is trying to negate the Holy Spirit Africa and invite in the spirit of our struggle of the ancestors that led it, the Nkrumahs, the Lumumbas, the Sankaras. I feel like as Africans all over the world today, we don’t pay homage enough to those men who allow us to be what we are, to be what we want to be able to at least aspire. A lot of people say we are self-made as African people. I say it’s impossible to be African anywhere in this world and be self-made because we were never invited to the table for anything. So for us to be anything in this system, someone had to pay the price to vote, to go to school, to be a lawyer, to sing, to even dance on the dance floor.

Ebro Darden: To call yourself Nigerian, to call yourself Ghanaian, to call yourself black.

Seun Kuti: Someone paid. And we also have a responsibility to pay it forward to the next generation. So that for me is a very strong part of what drives me, what I believe in. So yeah, even in our countries in Africa, we also have a lot to do and a lot to learn in terms of building this bridge to connect us.

Seun Kuti talks with Apple Music about the youth movement in Nigeria and around the world

Yeah, I think it’s a global shift as well. It’s a global shift in the consciousness of African people everywhere. We’ve all now at least come to the agreement collectively there is something wrong. What we are not sure of is what is wrong and how we go about fixing it. Well, at least for the first time, I think all African people everywhere in the world is difficult to find someone now that says, “Oh, police brutality is not real. Oh, racism is not…” Black people, we’ve gone past that brainwash. So right now out of this noise is coming clarity and articulation of purpose and articulation of our situation is not left to one person to articulate or clarify.

Seun Kuti talks with Apple Music about the the debate around African genre titles, comparing it to debate about Jollof rice

Seun Kuti: I mean, it’s just the way people debate about Jollof rice. I mean, I tell my friends all the time, Nkrumah will be turning in his grave if he knew 50 years after his struggle the biggest conversation between Nigerians and Ghanaians would be Jollof. Who’s Jollof rice?

Seun Kuti: The names we call these things, and it’s just different ways that the system wants Africans to compete. Everything about us has to be in competition. Everybody’s low-key competing with one another. Comparing. There’s this comparative existence between us that you cannot be successful really if you cannot gauge it against somebody else’s success or lack thereof. And I think that for us is debilitating. As African people, we need to cooperate.

Seun Kuti:The system cannot engage with anything African if you cannot commodify. Because we ourselves were once its commodity.