A Lagos exhibition celebrates Fela Kuti's defining sound

Regarded as one of Africa’s most influential artists and the godfather of the Afrobeat genre, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was a revolutionary act whose work shaped a generation of people. His music was a tool of resistance against oppression while creating sounds that traveled through time. Keying into the life of rebellion in which he lived, Afrobeat Rebellion is currently showing at the Ecobank PanAfrican Centre in Lagos, providing a compact look into the life he lived, welcoming audiences into an immersive experience, exploring his journey and legacy.

Divided into multiple sections that weave through Fela’s life, the exhibition expands at different points into collections of moments spanning time and place, providing an understanding of the world the artist inhabited and the people he inspired. One of the first things you see at the exhibition’s entrance is a digital illustration by Diana Ejaita titled that reinterprets Fela’s work and showcases his spirit. The illustration features words like 'Africa Must Unite,' and depictions of the artist and his mother, Funmilayo Anikulapo-Kuti, a women’s right activist and political educator.

Infographics are in Nigerian Pidgin as well as English, taking audiences into the language that was integral in Fela’s life and artistry. ‘It’s important for me that we recognise who Fela was, not just as a musician and an icon, but what he was trying to say about who we are as a people and how we need to maybe reorient our perception,’ says Papa Omotayo, creative director and founder of A White Space Creative Arts Foundation, producer of the exhibition.

The exhibition, which runs until December 28, 2025, also features a wall of posters from as far back as 1978, spotlighting the monumental change that has been experienced in Nigeria, and the things that in some way remain the same. There are often conversations about living archives in contemporary art, and the ways we can reinterpret the exhibition as an archive, and Afrobeat Rebellion, treats itself as an archive that reanimates the past of its subject. It creates a participatory, dynamic, and evolving experience that isn’t limited in its use, connecting audiences to the past. Omotayo believes that ‘the best archives are the ones that are living in which people can engage with.’

For Seun Alli, art curator of the exhibition, they had to ensure to capture some of the magic they found in the archives. ‘Looking at archives and how they could help build a strong curatorial cohesive - I don't want to use the word narrative, but just the story of what we're trying to tell was very important,’ Alli shares.

First shown at the Musée de la musique de la Philharmonie de Paris, and now reimagined into a grand scale and ambitious exhibition spanning various mediums, including photography, film, literature, music, and fashion, the exhibition recreates and showcase Fela’s life and the things he loved. There is a sense of identity within them that encapsulates the breadth of the artist. A display of his costumes and underpants are some of those – regarding the latter, Alli thought they may be too intimate to share, but felt she’d be doing the audience a disservice not to. They also speak to how influential his music was, and how he shaped the arts across the African continent and its diaspora, inspiring artists in new ways to represent themselves and speak truth a power.

‘For us putting together this show, we just felt it couldn't be linear, it had to be multidimensional. It had to speak to different senses, so as much as you're seeing something, you're also going to listen to something, you're also going to feel something. Albeit through different mediums: it could be photography, a song an interview,’ adds Alli.

As Nigeria’s art landscape continues to grow, exhibitions that move away from commercial viability become more important due to their accessibility, and how they can be utilised to create a supporting ecosystem for the arts. ‘I think there's been an absence of institutional exhibitions in the landscape. A lot of the exhibitions have been from privately-owned galleries. It's not to say those galleries have not created work opportunities that is retrospective or more institution, but because of the lack of institutions, whether it's the National Museum or other places, there hasn't been an opportunity for this scale of exhibition to sort of take place,’ Omotayo says. ‘But I think now as we're seeing the growth of organisations like MOWAA, Gas Foundation, projects like this feel like the tipping point where people are starting to understand exhibitions more than just an event or a commercial thing but exhibitions that can speak to a wider narrative.’

Afrobeat Rebellion is showing at the Ecobank PanAfrican Centre in Lagos until December 28