Femi Kuti At Lincoln Center's Midsummer Night Swing
- Author: Faith-Ann Young
- Posted on: Thursday July 22, 2010 at 3:00 PM
- Filed under: music, exclusive photos, femi kuti, fela kuti, summer heat, beating the heat, afrobeat, midsummer night swing
One steaming hot way to cool off from the hotter than hot summer nights in the city that never sleeps?
In this yearly ritual, the typically quite formal entrance of the Lincoln Center transforms into a full outdoor dance hall - where fore a small fee ($17), New Yorks of all ages, shapes and races dance the night away. (Group Dance Lessons start from 6:30-7:15 and then, various diverse forms of music and dancing ensures from 7:30-10:00.)
Since Midsummer Night Swing came to a close this past week, we thought we'd pay remembrance to this season's highlight: Femi Kuti's performance on Monday, July 12, 2010. The Nigerian funk singer, son of Fela Anikulapo Kuti who is credited to have invented Afrobeat, was dressed in a traditional green Nigerian pantsuit and performed a spirited, infectious array of Afrobeat songs. There is no better place to watch and groove to Afrobeat than in the open air. Therefore, as you can tell from the pictures below, Fela's passionate spirit could be felt in the crowd on July 12th - as hands were thrust in the air, people danced in heels like they were barefoot, and body parts were shook that were not typically shaken. The recession, politics, day to day pressures, and heat were camouflaged by the beat. Just as Fela would have liked.
Missed this show? No worries. The new musical FELA! featuring Femi and his group, The Positive Force, is taking Broadway by storm (it's already been nominated for 11 Tony Awards.) See a brief clip:
EXCLUSIVE PICTURES: FEMI KUTI @ Lincoln Center's Misummer Night Swing
Photos by Gabi Porter
RELATED CONTENT
COMMENTS
“ Working with people from Tanzania at Harvard, I remember how I fell in love with their culture...they are truly a beautiful people and you should incorprate more African beats into your songs like "Oh no, what you got." ”
“ amazing... ”
