Zombie, Oh Zombie

Seun Kuti, Fela in the Background

Seun Kuti and Egypt 80 played their first post-Felabration gig at the New Africa Shrine in Lagos last night. The crowd was sparse since it was the long Sallah holiday weekend when many people travel out of the city, and besides much of the local musical energy had been spent earlier in the month. Seun and Egypt 80 had just played at the Shrine a week ago - their Felabration set didn't start until the middle of the night and I couldn't get anyone to go out into the daunting Lagos midnight to catch the show with me. What I missed last Saturday was that, unannounced, elder brother Femi Kuti sat in with Seun and their father's band, apparently the first time Femi has played with Egypt 80 in 15 years and the first time Fela's two sons played together with their father's band in Lagos since Fela's death in 1997. It was videoed by Sahara TV and can be seen on Youtube (my bandwidth here in Nigeria is terrible and I hope I will actually get to watch it one of these days). 

Last night was good for the listener as the smaller crowd made the Shrine more pleasant than usual. The show started at 11:00 pm. Showboy led the band through a longer-than-planned warm-up set since Seun did not appear until about 1:00 am. He kicked off with Fela's Zombie, his customary (and exciting) set opener. It was a good one, channeling his father on alto sax and vocals as well as in the hilarious Zombie dance. In the subsequent hour and a half I stayed around, Seun only played one other tune and had just started on a third when I left due to the late hour. He gives his band mates plenty of room to stretch out, plays a strong and confident alto, and in general has continued Fela's jazzy, improvisatory approach to afrobeat that keeps the music fresh and interesting. Having Fela's original rhythm section anchor the band doesn't hurt either.

Egypt 80's Rhythm Section - These Guys Played With Fela. No Wonder Egypt 80 Sounds So Good.

Showboy had been at my house earlier in the day for my weekly Afrobeat lesson and we worked on Zombie at my behest. I had jumped in a bit over my head; I found the tune impossible to master instantly and have been working on it for a couple of weeks just to get it under my fingers. The tempo is killer and on tenor sax, the primary lick jumps up and down across the break at high speed. Thanks to the marvel of modern digital technology, I slowed the 1977 album track down to 80% until I got my fingers moving and then sped it back up to 100% after about a hundred iterations. The instrumentals sound OK at slow speed but the vocals are just wrong! By the end of the day I got it, finally, finally. Showboy is a hard taskmaster since he was there at the creation of the original and I really had a sense of accomplishment when he smiled and said I could stop for now.