Fela Kuti was a man of epic personality with a following in Africa as powerful as that of Bob Marley in other parts of the world. His image would have been easy to capitalise on, he's an icon to millions of downtrodden Africans living in poverty or under dictatorships, a man who embodied artistic genius with a fearless temperament, and who lived to care for the community in which he lived. His resting place is the front yard of his old home and commune, the Kalakuta republic. From the roof top, his shrine is beautiful and geometrically perfect.



"There can be no other Fela," said old Jimoh, my taxi driver who proudly remembers once driving the Kuti children around Lagos in his taxi. "Any other man is a counterfeit," he said, before telling me how it was possible in the Fela days to go to his Shrine nightclub and be fed a decent meal. Anyone was welcome, everyone would be taken care of.



Last Wednesday would have been Fela's 70th birthday. The Kuti's and our outfit bought two cows and they were slaughtered on the forecourt of the Shrine, where later on massive crowds would be dancing and smoking the night away. At night, I stayed high up on the balcony and watched with amazement the shows that unfolded to celebrate his birthday. During a rendition of Anarchy, a Fela song, the crowds picked up tables, chairs and glass bottles and smashed them or threw them wherever they could. After that they went back to watching the show with relative calm.

On hip-hop night, the Shrine was forced to close its gates after eight thousand people had come inside. The shows during Felabration are all free, and a lot of people get to eat for free too, something that his children have humbly insisted upon now that they run their own version if their father's legendary club.



Eight thousand young, mostly male, people high or drunk in an enclosed space could run to trouble. At three am, the Kuti daughter and her head of security are wandering around with a clipboard making sure that everything is running as it should. The security guards carry sticks, not guns, and in person are the gentlest, kindest men, despite their massive physical size. No one much misbehaves, everyone knows this is the Kuti home, not just a nightclub, and order must be respected. That is what Fela would have commanded, and that is what his children now expect too.