81. Made Kuti Knows Where Happiness Comes From

A review of Made Kuti's Chapter 1: Where Does Happiness Come From?

Four years after For(e)ward, his debut album (which was yoked as a double album release, Legacy+ with his father, Femi Kuti) was released, Made Kuti returns with his second album. Titled Chapter 1: Where Does Happiness Come From?, it is his first release away from his father’s embrace. It is the first album with his 15-man band, The Movement (on his previous album, he played all the instruments and handled the production). On this record, his band members are session men; like his famous grandfather Fela, Made Kuti wrote every note and word of music!

Four minutes short of an hour of listening time, this 13-track-long sophomore effort opens strong with ‘Take It All In Before The Lights Go Out.’ A brass section fest without accompanying lyrics, it is a high-energy gambit nudged by a relentless bassline begging buttocks to bend. Although recorded in the studio, the music transports an avid listener with its dislocating groove.

Suddenly, you are at a Lagos concert where, at night, the star-studded sky and the stench of clogged shallow gutters co-exist in a casual, disarming harmony. There is an urgency that the song’s tempo and its title demand. Although milder than Made’s repetitive motifs on his first album, it carries his distinct take on Afrobeat.

In a review of his first album for The Africa Report, I noted that “...his method has been to slow down the pace his father [Femi Kuti] gained” and deepen the musical layers with repetitive elaborations,” Made’s songwriting and sound gestures to the folksy, not Egypt 80-era Afrobeat or Positive Force’s rapid coal-hot Afrobeat.

The star on ‘Won Na Pa’ is the gently tickled talking drum, creating an ambience that contrasts with the song’s horror. Perpetrators of jungle justice are called out in halting Yoruba as twisted arsonists. The squeeze of economic hardship in Nigeria has been positively correlated with rampant violence and extrajudicial mob action. Made pairs the enthusiasm of a raconteur relaying this kind of horror with the talking drum, achieving sympathy and leaving the listener with a haunting feeling.

Not since Ambrose Akinmusire have I been endeared to how musician name their songs. Take It All In Before The Lights Go Out is a title worth coveting. Ditto for ‘Life As We Know It’, which would seem like a Nigerian tribute to the Hollywood film. The song opens with an indicting question, “How many cars do you need/to drive you from one place to another?”

Social commentary lends Afrobeat its political core. Since Fela, every Afrobeat composer has approached commentary with their own idiolects. While Femi Kuti is direct, near confrontational in his approach, Seun Kuti, the superior songwriter, holds a cheeky and melodic taunt. Made’s approach is oblique and measured. Instead of deploying voluminous lyrics, he often relies on his song title as a thesis. His first words are usually his most cogent. Close to the song’s coda, the utility of lyrics diminishes; the groove powered by complex percussive patterns swells and overwhelms the message.

‘Wait And See’ is my favourite tune. Built from simple piano chords that can be stripped to a wholesome lullaby, it is a textual and layered masterpiece with Made’s standout lyric, “Mind your business like Femi Kuti,” a nod to his father’s record, M.Y.O.B.

Afrobeat, in the hands of Femi and Fela Kuti, has addressed state violence and bodies being brutalised; in Made’s hands, Afrobeat explores tenderness and tribute and an outpouring of love.

On ‘Story’ Made features his father’s fine sax solo, Femi Kuti and provides the answer to the question his album asks, Where Does Happiness Come From? In every way (plus an incredible bassline), an Afrobeat song tackles the ubiquity of evil. Made Kuti asks critical citizens if they would be different from their leader with the question, ‘Are you better than the people you judge?’.

Chapter 1 assures every listener that Made has achieved remarkable growth in the last four years as a composer, songwriter and bandleader. At the risk of plagiarising oneself, I repeat, the Kuti legacy is Made.