Fela! explores Fela Anikulapo Kuti's controversial life as an artist, political activist and revolutionary musician as well as his pioneering blend of jazz, funk and traditional African rhythms that launched the Afrobeat community.
What Is Fela! About?
Upon entering the Eugene O’Neill Theatre, audiences of Fela! find themselves in the “Afrika Shrine,” a 1970s Lagos nightclub and political stage belonging to the show’s namesake central character, Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Through song, dance and onstage banter with the audience, Fela (a real-life historical figure from Nigeria) begins to share the extraordinary details of his life, from his travels across the globe to his development of the show’s signature fusion of jazz, funk and traditional African drum music known as Afrobeat. Fela, his band and his tribe of wives (the real man had, at one point, 27 spouses) also depict their politically oppressed Nigera, a country terrorized by its own government, and the crimes committed by their leaders against them. As stories from tragic to inspiring unfold, exhilarating song and dance drive one man’s legendary journey forward.
""Fela! is more than a musical; it’s an ecstatic phenomenon.""
Time Out New York
David Cote
""Delivering exuberant storytelling through song and dance, Fela! achieves something closer to the essence of great musicals than many more conventional shows have of late.""
USA Today
Elysa Gardner
""The concert format is punctuated with explosive dance numbers performed with an uninhibited joy and intensity by a fiercely talented ensemble. [Director, choreographer and co-creator] Bill T. Jones has delivered tight, sizzling staging that hits you with the force of a tidal wave.""
Backstage
David Sheward
""The show's raison d'etre is the music, ferociously performed by Antibalas, a Brooklyn-based band. [The] choreography...is outstanding and beautifully performed by a hardworking, sexy ensemble.""
The Hollywood Reporter
Frank Scheck
""As performed by 10 players, mostly members of Brooklyn’s Antibalas Afrobeat band, almost constant music makes “Fela!” as perfect a concert as it is a show. Bill T. Jones, who also directed, has devised spectacular African-inspired dances that fill every centimeter of the two-tiered set, repeatedly spill into the auditorium and seem barely containable by the theater’s walls.""
Bloomberg News
John Simon