MixTate Seun Kuti on Uzo Egonu

I like the almost surrealist style of Uzo Egonu’s painting. Everything seems bent and warped, as if perception has become tangled with imagination. Egonu portrays a village in northern Nigeria, the country where he grew up before moving to Britain aged 14. It must have been based on a childhood memory. I grew up in Lagos, so I’m really a city kid. I hardly went to the village, and when I did, I always wanted to go back to the city. But the feeling of nostalgia for childhood, of missing home, in this painting is something I can relate to.

The early 1960s, when Egonu painted this, was a time of great hope for our nation. After independence from British colonial rule in 1960, everybody believed in what we could be, and the potential of our country. Today, this hope has disappeared. The people still clamour for independence, which has been betrayed by our business and polit- ical elites. Since the 1960s, this elite has behaved as if independence was just for them, while the majority of us have never been able to experience the benefits of the Commonwealth and our heritage. That, for me, is what we must reclaim.

The songs I chose for this mix were inspired by the painting’s themes of memory and nostalgia. The selection represents my life’s journey – from where I started and the memory of my father, Fela Kuti, right up to the legacy of my family and where I am today. There’s hip hop that I’ve been listening to since I was a kid, and classic Afrobeat through to the Afrobeats sound I’m currently exploring with my project, BIGBIRD. To remind me of my time in the UK, I’ve also included drum’n’bass and a song by the British band Ezra Collective, who, to my mind, represent the most recent evolution of Afrobeat.

Fela Kuti and Afrika 70 – Sorrow, Tears and Blood

Manu Dibango – Soul Makossa

Femi Kuti – Chop and Run

Mádé Kuti – Wait and See

Gilberto Gil – Andar Com Fé

Sam Cooke – A Change Is Gonna Come

Ezra Collective – Victory Dance

M-Beat feat. General Levy – Incredible

Dead Prez – Hip-Hop

BIGBIRD KUTI, Vector, ODUMODUBLVCK – OPP (S)

^{Northern Nigerian Landscape was presented by Hiltrud Egonu in 2014.}

^{Seun Kuti is a musician and singer based in Lagos. He leads his father Fela Kuti’s former band Egypt 80.}

^{This mixtape is no.23 in the MixTate series.}