Fela Kuti Biopic ‘Fela’ In The Works – Steve McQueen To Direct

Director of Hunger and acclaimed artist Steve McQueen has been signed up by Focus Features to direct a biopic on the life of legendary Musician and Activist Fela Kuti. Steve McQueen won much acclaim and a number of awards for his debut film Hunger which was set around the 1981 Irish hunger strike. McQueen is writing the script for Fela with Biyi Bandele, adapting the Michael Veal book “Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon.” Focus ex executive James Schamus has said “Steve and Biyi’s vision is very cinematic and distinctive. Fela was a revolutionary figure in world culture, and Steve is an artist who had a strong vision of politics and the world even before he made his first film. They are kindred spirits.”

I really like the sound of this, I’m a fan of Biopics and Biographies. Fela Kuti was one of the most fascinating characters of the 20th Century. Below is an outline of his life from the book being adapted for Fela.

Musician, political critic, and hedonist, international superstar Fela Anikulapo-Kuti created a sensation throughout his career. In his own country of Nigeria, he was simultaneously adulated and loathed, often by the same people at the same time. His outspoken political views and advocacy of marijuana smoking and sexual promiscuity offended many, even as his musical brilliance enthralled them. In his creation of afrobeat, he melded African traditions with African-American and Afro-Caribbean influences to revolutionize world music. Although harassed, beaten, and jailed by Nigerian authorities, he continued his outspoken and derisive criticism of political corruption at home and economic exploitation from abroad. A volatile mixture of personal characteristics charisma, musical talent, maverick lifestyle, populist ideology, and persistence in the face of persecution made him a legend throughout Africa and the world. Celebrated during the 1970′s as a musical innovator and spokesman for the continent’s oppressed masses, he enjoyed worldwide celebrity during the 1980′s and was recognized in the 1990′s as a major pioneer and elder statesman of African music. By the time of his death in 1997 from AIDS-related complications, Fela had become something of a Nigerian institution. In Africa, the idea of transnational alliance, once thought to be outmoded, has gained new currency.