Reterdeen Staff
On Sunday, February 10, Seun Kuti was meant to join popular musical artistes over the globe like Diana Ross, Miley Cyrus, to perform at the 61st Grammy Awards. Although he failed to perform at the event, the singer stated flight mixups as his reason. Notwithstanding, the fact that he was billed alone is quite a great feat. This has sparked some interests on how far the brothers keep pushing the family-name.
Seun Kuti’s fourth album collection, “Dark Times”, was named in the Best World Music Album classification at the Grammy Awards. “Dark Times”, peaked at number eight on the Billboard World Music Chart in just a week of its release. The collection’s second track ‘Dark occasions’ which he collaborated with Mexican-American artist, Carlos Santana, shed light on the regular issues of administration standing up to numerous African nations.
Seun, together with his father’s Egypt 80 Band, was nominated alongside Bombino (Deran), Fatoumata Diawara (Fenfo), Soweto Gospel Choir (Freedom) and Yiddish Glory (The Lost Songs of World War II) for the award. The South African Group (Soweto Gospel Choir) won the award, their 3rd Grammy award.
Although, he did not win the prestigious award, this will not be the first time a son of the great Fela Anikulapo-Kuti will be nominated for this same award in the same category. Femi Kuti, the child of the late Abami Eda and elder brother to Seun Kuti, is a 4 time grammy nominee.
Femi was first named in 2003 and furthermore in 2010, 2012 and in 2014. In all these nominations, Femi Kuti has never won the award in the wake of making the history. He is being nominated under World Music category together with Gipsy Kings, Ladysmith, Black Mambazo and Ravi Shankar.
But, why the nominations without the plaque itself, So many music lovers has the opinion that it is not really a case of bad luck running in the family. Even before this year award, the Soweto Gospel Choir has been tipped as the winner of that category. This is the group’s 5th nomination so far and the album that won the grammy (Freedom) was recorded for Nelson Mandela’s 100 years celebration.
Still, it is worthy to note that the kutis have never departed from their unique music genre – afrobeat. Their dad, Fela Kuti, the founder of afrobeat has initiated it and till this moment, Femi and Seun has kept it alive.
“My great granddad was the main music artist to be recorded in West Africa. My granddad was an extraordinary writer of Anglican songs. My dad, my sibling and now me, my family is profoundly musical. There is no getting away it.” Seun said about the love for music that runs in the family.
With 5 Grammy nominations and still counting, there is no doubt that the Kuti’s will finally be recognized for being unique and different.
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