Seun Kuti At SXSW: The Hottest Tightest Show In Town

By  Deborah Sengupta Stith

I literally was telling everyone who would listen that Thursday’s African music showcase at Copa was quite possibly the greatest international dance party in Austin ever. There was a good mix of SXSWers and locals including a sizable population of African ex-pats. Despite a little weirdness on the vocal mix, Kenyan electro outfit Just-A-Band killed with the lo-fi house, winning, no doubt a mess of new fans. Spoek Mathambo was insane, blasting a chaotic and disorienting yet weirdly engrossing blend of post-apocalyptic dance punk. In between sets DJ Chief Boima dropped a wild African house party mix that kept the dance floor hopping all night long.

But then the club hit capacity. It was shortly before 1AM Baloji, a Belgian-Congolese rapper backed by an amazing bluesy Afrobeat combo had just whipped the crowd into a near frenzy (and in the process, blatantly ignored the SXSW staff attempts to cut his set off — he held the 10 minutes sign up to the crowd and ripped it in half, which elicited a raucous cheer.)

People were feeling good.

But as Baloji left the stage people began jockeying for good positioning for Seun Kuti and Egypt 80, the legendary ensemble that backed his father Fela’s band. It immediately became apparent that while Copa is actually a fairly large capacity venue, only about a third of the total space (including the back patio) has any sort of reasonable sight line to the stage. Being that this was Kuti’s only gig at SXSW, the majority of the capacity-crowd packed into the stage-dance floor area. The result was an intense crush of humanity, hot, stuffy and uncomfortable, made bearable only by the lingering good vibes generated by the evening’s performers and the anticipation of Kuti’s set. Then came the process of figuring out how to fit Kuti’s 15-piece band including two back-up singers who also perform very exuberant African dance moves onto Copa’s relatively small stage. It took an hour.

Finally, at 1:45 a.m. Kuti took the stage and introduced the band, explaining that he would only be able to play for 20 minutes. ‘Put the (expletive) P.A. on the floor!’ an irate fan called out, maybe as a complaint about Kuti’s mic level. A hush fell across the crowd, startled at the disrespect shown to an ensemble consisting of some of the elder statesmen of Afrobeat. Kuti, ignored it.

His band commenced to put out the incredible wall of sound everyone expected, but there was a problem. They were pumping out some of the most danceable music on the planet into a crowd that had absolutely no room to move. Two near altercations went down in my near vicinity. I couldn’t see the stage at all, but after the first song Kuti called out to one of his players (a dancer?) ‘Get your (expletive) back on stage’. The band clearly, was also feeling the crunch. True professionals, the sound didn’t disappoint and the band was every bit as good as you would expect. For 20 minutes. Then the club lights came up. And Kuti said good night. Cheers of protest coaxed an encore out of the band. They played another 10 minutes. It was excellent. Then it was over.

Walking back to the car, I tried to mull over what happened. Clearly, Copa was the wrong venue for that show. A large venue like Stubb’s or La Zona Rosa would be more suited to the kind of interest Fela Kuti’s original backing band and his youngest son playing a single performance at SXSW would obviously generate. But part of what made the evening special was the fact that it was an African showcase, a full bill of wildly original African acts that many in the crowd had never heard of before tonight’s performance. One of the guys from Sauti Sol played drums on Just-A-Band’s set. Spoek Mathambo also pulled Sauti Sol on stage for an out of this world collaborative jam. If Kuti had been moved to a larger venue those other bands would probably have been billed separately denying them a larger audience and all of us the house party experience which, certainly, was enhanced by the anticipation of Kuti’s set. And truth be told, I was loving the African dance party right up until the point of the hour-long crush. So something went wrong, but it was in the process of attempting to create something incredibly right.

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