Afrobeat singer Femi Kuti has refuted claims that late drummer Tony Allen co-pioneered the Afrobeat genre alongside his father, the legendary Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.
In a video shared online, Femi argued that Fela was a multi-instrumentalist and composer who solely created his drum patterns and passed them on to Allen and other instrumentalists.
“My father was a multi-instrumentalist and composer. He studied music. He knows every single part of his instrument. You probably have read that they said he said, ‘Without Tony Allen, there is no Afrobeat.’ That is the biggest bullshit ever said about my father. It is such a big lie,” Femi said.
He alleged that the credit being given to Allen was part of a strategy to promote him post-Fela.
“They tried to sell Tony Allen so they decided to lie. Yes, he was a good drummer but Fela taught him his style of drums. Fela came up with all his drum patterns. We saw it,” he said.
“I was a child, a teenager, a man, we saw Fela do it. Fela wrote all his patterns. I keep asking them, why didn’t Tony Allen tell us which songs he did for Fela? He couldn’t because there was no song that Fela asked him to put the drum pattern for him. It is impossible.”
Femi further claimed that no one could contribute during Fela’s music-making process because he would often go into a trance while composing.
“When Fela was writing, no one could make any inputs because he goes into trance while making music. Everyone around him then must maintain calmness and listen to his composition and instructions,” he said.
Challenging those who insist Fela credited Allen as a co-creator of Afrobeat, Femi added: “So, I asked those saying Fela credited Allen for Afrobeat where he did and they can’t produce it. There is no article, recording or footage from any interview to prove it. It is impossible that Fela would make such a statement and there is no copy anywhere.”
Tony Allen, who died in 2020, was Fela’s longtime drummer and worked with him from the 1960s through the 1970s as part of Africa 70.
He was widely praised for his distinctive drumming and was often referred to internationally as the co-founder of Afrobeat, a claim that has now been firmly rejected by Femi Kuti.
