Early life
Olufela Olusegun Olufemi Anikulapo Kuti — known worldwide as Femi Kuti — was born on 16 June 1962 in London, England, and raised in Lagos, Nigeria. He is the eldest son of Fela Kuti, the musician and activist who created Afrobeat by fusing traditional Yoruba rhythm, highlife, jazz and American funk into a single, politically charged sound, and grandson of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, a leading Nigerian women's rights activist.
Joining Egypt 80
Femi began performing saxophone with his father's band, Egypt 80, in the late 1970s, eventually becoming its bandleader in the years before Fela's death in 1997. Growing up inside that band gave him a direct, lived education in Afrobeat's structure: extended grooves, call-and-response horns, and lyrics aimed squarely at Nigerian politics and daily life.
The Positive Force
In 1986, Femi Kuti formed his own group, the Positive Force, to carry the Afrobeat tradition forward on his own terms — tighter arrangements, a harder horn section, and a voice increasingly aimed at government corruption, poverty and public health in Nigeria. Over four decades the band has toured festival stages worldwide, from Glastonbury to the Hollywood Bowl, introducing Afrobeat to audiences who never encountered Fela Kuti's original recordings directly.
The New Africa Shrine
Since 2000, Femi Kuti has run the New Africa Shrine in Lagos, a live-music venue built in tribute to his father's original Afrika Shrine, which had closed after Fela's death. The venue remains a working stage for Afrobeat and Nigerian live music, not a museum piece — bands play there most weeks, continuing the club culture the Kuti family built around the genre.
A musical family
Femi Kuti's son, Made Kuti, has released his own solo albums and performs alongside his father, extending the Kuti lineage into a third generation of Afrobeat musicians. Femi's sister, Yeni Kuti, manages the New Africa Shrine and has performed as a dancer and singer within the family's bands.