Sahr Ngaujah stars as Nigerian musician Fela Anikulapo Kuti in "Fela!"Monique Carbon
When people think of a revolution, they think of men with AK-47s, not a saxophone, trumpet and a great pair of dancing shoes. But artists can create revolutions. A case in point: post-colonial Nigerian activist Fela Kuti, the creator of Afrobeat.
His music and story have been turned into a musical that is being credited with another type of revolution: changing the way musical theatre is experienced. Produced by Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith, and directed and choreographed by Bill T. Jones, the Tony Award-winning Fela! opens in Toronto on Tuesday with Sahr Ngaujah playing the larger-than-life Kuti.
The Globe had a chance to speak with Ngaujah, who also played Kuti in the original Broadway show, about the Nigerian pioneer, his music and his legacy.
Reading your Broadway reviews made me want to get up out of my seat and dance. Has performing this show been a joyful experience for you?
Yeah, totally man. Every time we hear the music in Fela! it still has that same something about it that still really wants to make you want to move. Maybe Fela Kuti put some magic inside of his music that makes it infectious but it definitely works whatever he did.
What's the best way to describe taking on a role like Kuti – a musician a political activist and a man who had 27 wives?
It's kind of like wielding a lightning bolt. I'm talking about the energy of it, the way it feels. This is when I want to use my Bill T. Jones quote: "Fela was a tornado of a man." Fela is very dynamic – I don't know if that is the best word for Fela's personality. He's not like anybody on the planet that I've ever heard of before.
Did you know Kuti's story before you accepted the role?
I knew Fela's music. I knew some of his ideas, like what he was talking about in his music. I knew that he smoked a lot of ganja and that he married 27 women. But it wasn't much more than that.
So I started to eat and sleep Fela to prepare for the role and to find my place, to find a way to relate to him. I always keep my nose in a book, my eyes on a documentary or concert footage. I studied him a lot. And I still do. I talk to his family, his former band members and his friends.
It's about finding nuances. How does Fela use his hands, his eyes? Why does he dance like that? Oh yeah, he dances like that because some of the bones in his ribs where broken so he had to dance like that.
The show also includes some dancing from the audience.
The music is there for people to enjoy the show. All of these things that we're doing on stage are coming from what was going on in Fela's club. That is essentially what we are offering: Now you are in Fela's club tonight. This is back in the seventies after some atrocities happened to him and his family, actions of the military government. So here we are at his club about to have this great time.
At his club, Fela would talk to you, so if you want to talk back to Fela, you did. And that's the exchange. In our piece, we have this exchange inside of it. If you go to his club, you get up and dance and if you go to ours, you get up and dance too.
What makes Fela's life story relevant today?
His life story is relevant because his life story is big. It's a lot bigger than what we're showing on stage. He was an artist from Nigeria who had a lot to say about how people have been treated in his country. His life is a very interesting picture of one person in one country who bore witness and had something to say about a turning point in the history of that nation.
How does all the talk about the show being "revolutionary" affect you?
It makes me want to look further inside and look for other places to go. If this is uncharted territory, then we need to go deeper into the cave.
This interview has been condensed and edited.