This may be of interest. I found it on Billboard. I think I have overcome my confusion now.
Thanx to all those who clarified this Fela/Femi confusion of mine. Feature stories on artists and the music they make. By Chris Morris, January 6, 2000. Nigerian Father & Son Feted On MCA LOS ANGELES -- In a unique two-pronged campaign, MCA Records will simultaneously market a new release by Nigerian vocalist/saxophonist/bandleader Femi Kuti and a huge complement of reissues by his father, the late Afro-beat originator Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. On Feb. 1, MCA will issue "Shoki Shoki," Femi's label debut, and "The Best Best Of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti," a two-CD compilation of classic Fela material. Then, in February, March, and April, the label will release a total of 10 two-fer packages comprising 20 albums recorded by Fela between 1970 and 1981; these collections were released in 1999 by Barclay in France and Talkin' Loud in the U.K. Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was one of Africa's best-known musicians and certainly its most notorious. Born in 1938 in Abeokuta, Nigeria, and educated at Trinity College of Music in London, the saxophonist/keyboardist/vocalist brought a group to the U.S. in 1969. Based in Los Angeles, he evolved a style, later known as Afro-beat, that fused radical black politics, African rhythms, and American jazz, soul, and funk. Returning to Nigeria in 1973, Fela opened his famed Lagos club, Shrine, and recorded prolifically with his group Africa 70 (later known as Egypt 80). He became an outspoken critic of Nigeria's repressive political regime. His opposition to the government culminated in 1977, when soldiers sacked his Lagos compound, which Fela had established as a "state-within-a-state" known as Kalakuta Republic. A year later, commemorating the event with an act of calculated outrage, he married 27 women -- many of whom were members of his troupe -- in a group ceremony. Persistently harassed, arrested, and beaten in his home country, Fela nonetheless became an international star through frequent European and American touring. Intransigent to the end, he died of complications from AIDS in 1997. Femi Kuti says his family sold his father's masters -- last released widely in the U.S. by Celluloid Records in the '80s but unavailable for years -- to thwart their illegal reproduction. "When my father died, the bootleggers took advantage, and not much money came to Fela's family," Femi says. "The quality was bad. To put it properly, and for history, our children will always have Fela's works properly in the market. I believe only a major company like Universal really can do it properly." The release of Fela's two-fers will kick off Feb. 15 with "Expensive Shit"/"He Miss Road" and "Shakara"/"London Scene." These will be followed on March 7 by "Coffin For Head Of State"/"Unknown Soldier" and "V.I.P."/"Authority Stealing"; on March 21, "Yellow Fever"/"Na Poi" and "Opposite People"/"Sorrow Tears And Blood"; on April 4, "Original Suffer Head"/"I.T.T." and "Shuffering And Shmiling"/"No Agreement"; and on April 11, "Stalemate"/"Fear Not For Man" and "Confusion"/"Gentlemen." In terms of publicity, the principal beneficiary of the Fela reissue slate will be Femi Kuti, whose "Shoki Shoki" was released by Barclay in 1998 and became a European best seller. Though he played with his father's groups for 16 years, Femi takes pains to separate his own music -- which acknowledges the influence of American pop and addresses sex as often as it does politics -- from Fela's Afro-beat. "I can tell the difference very much myself, so I wonder when a lot of people say they can hear the similarities," he says. "Maybe the similarity is because I'm his son. I tend to sound like him sometimes." Still, Femi bears the activist streak that runs in his family. He refused to perform at the inauguration of Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo -- the nation's military strongman and Fela's principal adversary in the late '70s -- and has founded a political awareness group, the Movement Against Second Slavery. Femi says of the state of affairs in Nigeria, "There has to be a way where we can change these leaders into doing something more positive with the power they have. That [may be a product of] more international pressure-by exposing them in Europe, they will not like the bad publicity they will get. [Also, we must] make more people aware of the political situation in Nigeria itself and make more people participate in the politics in that country." MCA's U.S. launch for Femi began in September with a six-date tour that took his 15-piece band to San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, New York, and Detroit. In conjunction with the tour, Femi appeared on the air at KCRW Los Angeles and KUSF San Francisco and on the syndicated "Putumayo World Music Hour." During the fall tour swing, Femi collaborated with hip-hop group the Roots on a remix of the "Shoki Shoki" track "Blackman Know Yourself," which MCA will release in January. Femi will undertake a larger-scale U.S. tour in February.
