A return to the source of a musical and political movement of which Femi Kuti is a symbol.

Femi Kuti was born in London in 1962. He quit school in 1978 to play saxophone in his father's band Egypt 80. In 1986, while Fela enjoyed huge popularity which attracted government disapproval, Femi took up the pioneer's afrobeat mantle and formed his own group: Positive Force. Over the next ten years he gradually freed himself of his father's musical influence finally achieving full recognition in his own right in 1994 when he signed with the legendary Motown label.

His eponymous album, which came out in 1995, established Femi to a wider audience on the international scene with a more accessible but equally demanding conception of afrobeat.

1997 was a tragic year for Femi, as despite his first professional breakthrough in which he achieved international recognition, it was also the year in which he suffered the loss of his father, and within only months, the death of his sister Sola. Tragedies that would inspire one of the most moving songs from the inheritor of "the Tiger": "97".

After two years, in 1999 Femi brings out a new album on a new label. "Shoki-Shoki" driven by a relatively traditional afrobeat receives public recognition as well as the critical acclaim of his early works.

In 2001 "Fight to Win" continues to evolve this development of a democratization and an openness in afrobeat instigated by Femi since his first album. Containing Nigerian jazz-funk rhythms with a touch of hip-hop, Femi collaborated with American rappers such as Mos Def and Common, and soul singer Jaguar Wright, creating an album of universal critical acclaim.

After three years spent between studio work and touring, Femi seemed to want to look elsewhere and returned to the roots of a musical and political movement of which he is, as of now, the unique symbol and only representative. He decided to invest his success in the reconstruction of a new Shrine, a musical temple, erected, displaced and rebuilt by Fela following repeated attacks against the old ones by a corrupt military power. Just as his father before him, Femi and his "Positive Force" continue to make of this place a space in which music is the weapon of the future.

For this heir to afrobeat it's a turning point. Having achieved recognition on the international scene since the 1990's, Femi could have chosen to live in a western city such as Paris, London or New York, all cities which have taken him to their hearts. But it's in his hometown of Lagos, one of the most explosive cities in the world, conceptualised by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, that this descendent of an illustrious line of Yoruba intellectuals has decided to pursue the fight.

Friday 13th October 2000

On an industrial wasteland of Ikeja, the historic quarter of the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti, it's the dawn of a new era of Afro-beat. Tonight, the new Africa Shrine is being inaugurated in an electric atmosphere of area boys, civilians, musicians and a small contingent of western journalists who have come to cover the event. And what an event this is - after the destruction of the Shrine a year and a half ago, in the mythical club where Fela accompanied the descent of the seventh largest oil power in the world to politico-economic hell - his eldest son is realising a risky dream: the conversion of a warehouse with freshly painted walls into the new temple of Nigerian protest-song... The original shrine in Pebble Street is no more, it's been converted into one of the evangelical churches Fela criticised throughout his lifetime.

On a newly constructed stage, beneath portraits of panAfricanist poets and heroes of Black Power, tonight Africa is witnessing the renaissance of Afro-beat. The new Africa Shrine is rising up, to prove that like the Yoruba proverb, the son of a tiger remains a tiger.

The Nigerian federation, which has just reinstated a civilian government after sixteen terrible years of military dictatorship, has found its new resonance (and reasoning) chamber, a new temple, where an altar is dedicated to the man who carried death in his quiver.

Femi's Africa Shrine is bigger, more open.

A portion of the 13 million inhabitants of Lagos throw themselves body and soul into the Sunday night 'Sunday Jumps', nights of aural ecstasy where they can forget their distress.

March 2004

Three and a half years after its inauguration, the Africa Shrine has become the emblem of a city as fascinating as it is Dantean, valiantly struggling to pull itself from the economic quagmire overshadowing the future of the most populous country of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Despite the setbacks caused by all those who reject his outspoken views - fundamentalist preachers, corrupt politicians, xenophobic militia, delinquent Ogas - and despite the economic pressure inherent in running such a venue, the Africa Shrine is as well known as its predecessor.

Although Fela's famous queens are still dancing in the cages of the Shrine, the sellers of NNG (Nigerian Natural Grass) are more discreet.

The opening hours of Sunday Jump are adapted to the lack of security which freezes the traffic between two areas of the city at 10 o'clock at night. Femi's sermons are more pragmatic. Closer to Alter-Globalisation than to Afrocentrism. Militant but without the angry, stoned edge...

However, in this new Shrine, Lagos is burning as bright as ever, and Femi's concerts simmer with an energy which lacks nothing of his father's performances.

At the end of March, whilst the UWe and MK2 crews were finally setting up their cameras and microphones to record the Nigerian artist's first live CD-DVD album, the country was preparing the election, in a climate combining chaos and apathy, of the 774 local governments of the federation of 36 states and 250 ethnic groups.

The year before, during the country's first post-independance civil electoral transition, the outgoing president Olusegun Obasanjo was voted back in during elections marred by irregularities and marked by political assassinations.

The north of the country, essentially Muslim, barricaded itself into a suicidal Sharia criminal code, instrumentalised by former barons of the military dictatorship.

The south-west, in turmoil after the increasingly worrying addresses delivered by certain evangelical churches, found itself caught up in a rat-race, caught in a stranglehold with the fall of the national currency, the Naira, and the deregulation and privatization of the remaining public services which remained in existence. As for the petrol-rich south-east, it became a grey zone out of bounds to foreign journalists, patrolled by ethnic militia and private security companies employed by the energy multinationals.

A sign of the times: a few days after the visit of the UWe / MK2 Music team, its producers Arnaud Frisch and Charles Gillibert, the sound engineer Sodi, and the director Raphaël Frydman, a mysterious coup d'etat was crushed in its infancy in Abuja, the new federal capital.

Capturing the most authentic concerts of afrobeat, bearing witness to the full strength of Femi on his own ground, in front of his public.

At the origins of "Africa Shrine - Live at the Shrine" is first and foremost music which is Femi's "raison de vivre".

As soon as his twenty musicians and dancers are gathered around him, he becomes a tremendously forceful showman, unable to part from his audience after five hours of showtime. The incredible scene of a worn-out animal pacing up and down the stage, until the crowd galvanize him enough to play one last song, then another, and another… "He keeps his trumpet with him even in his tub", says one of his closest choir members. When he plays to the extreme like this, his African Jazz-Funk seems to possess an inexhaustible, fascinating energy. And just seeing the energy issuing from Femi and his group, as well as the communion of his audience, we can understand why, from the Afro-House stage of New York to the Rap scene of Chicago, from the Afro-beat nights of London to the minimal techno of Cologne, so many people of the west dream of going some day to Lagos and get involved in one of those mythical Sunday Jumps.

With music, interviews and street scenes, this live DVD remains, above all, the portrait of a man and a people who are fighting.

For if Femi himself confesses that this project of live recording is the one he cherishes most fondly, it is undoubtedly because it reflects best his reality: that of the Shrine, that of Lagos, that of the Nigerian people. For this recording, he has carefully selected some of the brightest stars of Afro-beat, an offering for an entranced crowd. Selected only, for in the temple of Shrine, only the people decide.

He unanimously chose some titles and rejected others, to keep only what enthralls him. Besides the classic "97" and a revival of Fela's famous "Water No Get Enemy", the CD features only new titles out of the Shrine cradle for the first time. After three years' work, Femi finally presents them through this fabulous recording and the accompanying world tour.

If he was to explain it to a newcomer, Sodi, the sound engineer of this outstanding venture, would speak of "Afro-urban" sounds: "First of all because it is very electric and then because it also refers to the Yoruba rhythms as demonstrated by the drums. It is the African tradition, enhanced by electricity and brass".

This ancestral funk, boosted by adrenalin, supports the popular revolt of Femi. Titles such as "Dem Bobo" or "1, 2, 3, 4" still blast institutional "democrazy", whilst the insurgent "Shotan" seems to start a regular trench war in the venue.

Such a subtle balance between revolt and sensuality creates the charisma of Femi Kuti, as square as his shoulders, and as open and generous as the heart of Africa.

The Shrine may well be dead, but the Africa Shrine is well and truly alive. It's undoubtedly to be reckoned with as one of the finest visiting cards of this 21st century Africa, in full disagreement with the obituaries of the western media.

Prepare to hear and better understand the calls of the most populous country in Africa.

Lagos is burning.