I stumbled across a clip of Seun Kuti talking to Wax Poetics about his life, music and his new album ‘From Africa With Fury: Rise’ - recorded in Rio de Janeiro with co-producers Brian Eno and John Reynolds. Following a few days of watching our politicians unwilling to actually say anything beyond repeating a rehearsed mantra it’s quite refreshing to find someone with a cause and the willingness to express themselves.
“You want to help African people – why don’t you stop African rulers from stashing their wealth in your countries? I think a better way for the British and U.S. governments is to load their planes full of my albums and drop them on Libya.”Seun Kuti
You can get a quick taste of the record by watching the video for ‘Rise’
‘From Africa With Fury: Rise’ got repeated play - courtesy of it’s existence on Spotify and became the soundtrack to a little pre WOMAD Charlton Park research. I’ll be photographing and filming at the festival again this year and so I decided to look back at what was good and bad from previous excursions. One thing that cropped up was that there is a mass of images that just never really see the light of day - Seun Kuti’s 2008 performance on the main stage being just one example. This seemed like a good moment to bring one or two out of storage.
Loney dear
The Appearance of Colour
The Radiophonic Workshop
Roddy Woomble at Kings Place
A Guy Called Gerald on Loudness
The Power of Distortion
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