Tonight: Seun Kuti and Egypt 80 at the 9:30 Club

Fela Kuti’s youngest son, Seun, headlines the 9:30 Club tonight, with dad’s sensibility pretty much intact: On the evidence of the video below, he’s inherited the same taste for politicized chanting, dynamic stage shows, and extended Afrobeat grooves. Not as extended as the ones Fela dealt in, though. As he told the Boston Globe over the weekend:

“Only Fela could make songs 35 minutes long and have them published!” he says from a tour stop in France. “But me, basically, I feel like I have to bring Afrobeat into the future. People move so fast these days, you need to make shorter songs to get inside their head.”

This video comes from a show in Dakar in 2005. I haven’t spent enough time with Femi and Seun’s output to handicap a son-versus-son matchup; heck, I still haven’t gotten through all the Fela reissues that came out stateside in the late ’90s. If you have strong opinions on the matter, leave them in the comments. Regardless, tickets are still available for tonight’s show; doors open at 7 p.m.

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