FELA KUTI REVIVED BY INDEPENDENT CURATOR – By Jessica Ann Peavy

When I first came to meet Trevor Schoonmaker to write this story, he asked me if I have ever listened to Fela, and when I politely said that I hadn’t heard much of his music, he immediately tossed five Fela CDs at me, and said "Take them, you have to listen to it!"

FELA KUTI REVIVED BY INDEPENDENT CURATOR

By Jessica Ann Peavy

 

 

 

 

When I first came to meet Trevor Schoonmaker to write this story, he asked me if I have ever listened to Fela, and when I politely said that I hadn’t heard much of his music, he immediately tossed five Fela CDs at me, and said "Take them, you have to listen to it!" I was looking at a young, independent curator, one with few connections in the New York City art community, but with the will to give several years of his life to creating the show of his dreams. You hear about those people who are so passionate about their work that they refuse to take no for answer; well, I was certainly looking one of those people right in the eyes.

Schoonmaker’s show, "Black President" recently opened in San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Initially, it was curated for the New Museum last summer. It paid tribute to Nigerian musical revolutionary Fela Anikulapo Kuti who spent his life being harassed, beaten and imprisoned for fighting against the Nigerian government. Schoonmaker comments on Fela’s place in music and social and music history as being on par with Bob Marley: "for people not to even have a hint of his impact on music and on broader culture, politics, it just seems mind-boggling. Fela was certainly a person of that caliber."

Schoonmaker first heard Fela Kuti played in a small New York City bar that, not surprisingly, no longer exists. He got so turned on by the music that he jumped at the chance to live in Nigeria with a friend for two months in order to do more research on Fela. When he returned, he and Afrobeat DJ Rich Medina threw "Fela Parties" playing Fela’s music to strike up an interest in his music to the club-going crowd. Schoonmaker also spent years writing a book on Fela titled, "Fela: From West Africa to West Broadway."

Schoonmaker didn’t want to do a show based around an artist that the majority of the public was already familiar with. He chose to have a show based not on a particular painter, sculptor, photographer, or installation artist, but on this political musician. He then asked a variety of visual artists to help tell the story of the influential artist. "I was just more interested in working on a project, working with a subject, that can help educate people. There is a long history of sort of protest singers in various cultures. But I don’t think anyone has taken it to level that Fela has. Where you’re not just singing about it, but you are actively living it. Where you are running for presidency, well it failed to be acknowledged, but he was trying to run. And even more so in terms of his critiques and combative relationships with Nigerian dictators and multi-national corporations. He lived a life where he walked the walk, he didn’t just talk."

Schoonmaker realized that Fela inspired many artist and that was the inspiration for his show. He wanted to keep a certain level of authenticity within the project and sought out artist who were already creating work influenced by Fela. Among the work he uncovered, was "Music is the Weapon," a 50-minute documentary film which includes actual interviews and performances of Fela before his death in 1997. Two French filmmakers, Stephane Tchal-Gadjieff and Jean Jacques Flori, directed this documentary.

Fela effectively used his music and the stage as a means to get across his political views. "I think what he did what was so brilliant, turning people onto the music so much that they couldn’t resist it. [He made it] this really funky music and also [gave it a] raw sex appeal. I think it was pretty important. I mean he had very sexy dancers, and he himself was incredibly stylish and charismatic, and that draws people in. And he would say that he would only perform so that he could get up there and talk. He really wanted to deliver his message," Schoonmaker recalls of the musician.

Schoonmaker is very humble and modest about his success with this show. The New Museum had never had a show where the line for the opening was around the block, and filled with many people who had not before been regular members of the art circuit. I told Trevor that I had heard that the membership at the New Museum skyrocketed after his show, he smiled and responded rather coyly, "that’s what I heard, too."