Africans Need To Appreciate History – Femi Kuti

Legendary musician, Femi Kuti, the son of Afrobeat pioneer and political activist Fela Kuti, inherited his father’s zeal for both music and activism.

At over 56, Femi remains politically opinionated and shares his strong views on the national issues as it affects the masses.

In this exclusive chat, he explains why Africans need to understand and appreciate history.

In his words, ‘Africa is the cradle of civilization, writing started here. The first university was in Africa, these are facts, so Africans need to understand what we have been through in our history. First we take the 500 years of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade for granted and we blame ourselves because of the history books and we don’t really understand what our people go through.‘

Femi explained further, ‘Imagine the 100 years of colonization when Europeans came here to boss us, forced us to speak their language, forced us to bear their names, raped our women, you can’t imagine the atrocities these people committed here and then we accept it and blame ourselves for this history. Our history books make us blame ourselves. The government does not reverse this kind of tutorship and let us appreciate the facts of this history, and 60 years of corrupt bad government in Africa has not helped either.’