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On the 25th of March 2023, the BMRU was honoured to host, along with the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton, a night of discussion and celebration: Afrobeat to Afrobeats. Focusing on Fela Kuti’s music, the event mapped the journey from highlife to Afrobeat through past and present West African musicians and their contributions to British popular music. Fela’s music is an example of colonial history and the hybridisation of West African, African American and African Caribbean music that resulted in the birth of a new genre in the late 1960s.
Afrobeat and Afrobeats are intrinsically connected to a similar narrative that links reggae, jungle, grime, and drill, to the cultural and political landscapes of popular music in Britain. These genres curate political awareness and activism and have always been present in black British music. The event allowed us to share Fela Kuti and his cultural impact with a wide present day audience, and was a night of rich discussion and engagement with his work.
Missed this event? You can see some of the research that inspired this evening on display at the BMRU and British Library’s Beyond the Bassline Exhibition between April-August 2024. Get your tickets here.