The Biography Of Femi Kuti [Age, Life Profile, History & Net Worth]

http://ift.tt/2miHP7H

Olufela Olufemi Anikulapo Kuti (born June 16, 1962), popularly known as Femi Kuti, is a Nigerian musician born in London and raised in Lagos. He is the eldest son of afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti. and a grandchild of a political campaigner, women’s rights activist and traditional aristocrat Funmilayo Ransome Kuti.

Femi’s musical career started when he began playing in his father’s band, Egypt 80. In 1986, Femi started his own band, Positive Force, and began establishing himself as an artist independent of his father’s massive legacy.

His first record was released in 1995 by Tabu/Motown, followed four years later by Shoki Shoki (MCA), which garnered widespread critical acclaim. In 2001 he collaborated with Common, Mos Def and Jaguar Wright on Fight to Win, an effort to cross over to a mainstream audience, and started touring the United States with Jane’s Addiction. In 2004 he opened The Shrine, his club, where he recorded the live album Africa Shrine. After a 4-year absence due to personal setbacks, he re-emerged in 2008 with Day by Day and Africa for Africa in 2010, for which he received two Grammy nominations. In 2012 he was both inducted into the Headies Hall of Fame (the most prestigious music awards in Nigeria), was the opening act on the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ European arena tour and became an Ambassador for Amnesty International.

He continues to expand the diversity of his artistry on his new album (2013) No Place for My Dream. Femi Kuti was a judge on Nigeria’s huge TV show Nigerian Idol Season 3.

Femi was born in London to Fela and Remi Kuti and grew up in the former Nigerian capital, Lagos. His mother soon left his father, taking Femi to live with her.

In 1977, however, Femi chose to move in with his father. Femi started playing the Saxophone at age 15 and he eventually became a member of his father’s band.

Like his father, Femi has shown a strong commitment to social and political causes throughout his career.

He created his own band Positive Force in the late 1980s with Dele Sosimi (Gbedu Resurrection), former keyboard player of Fela Anikulapo Kuti. His international career began in 1988 when he was invited by the French Cultural Centre in Lagos and Christian Mousset to perform at the Festival d’Angoulême (France), the New Morning Club in Paris and the Moers Festival in Germany.

In 2001, Femi collaborated on his album Fight to Win with a number of U.S. musicians, including Common, Mos Def, and Jaguar Wright.

In 2002, Femi’s mother, who had played an influential role in Femi’s life, died at the age of 60. Femi’s son currently appears as part of his act, playing alto saxophone.

Also in 2002, Femi contributed a remake of his father’s classic song, “Water No Get Enemy”, to Red Hot & Riot, a compilation CD in tribute to Fela Kuti that was released by the Red Hot Organization and MCA. His track was created in collaboration with hip hop and R&B artists, D’Angelo, Macy Gray, The Soultronics, Nile Rodgers, and Roy Hargrove, and all proceeds from the CD were donated to charities dedicated to raising AIDS awareness or fighting the disease.

Femi Kuti’s voice is featured in the videogame Grand Theft Auto IV, where he is the host of radio station IF 99 (International Funk 99, described as “playing a great selection of classics from West Africa, the US and elsewhere”).

In similar fashion as his father, there have been complaints of Kuti’s criticism of his homeland Nigeria, specifically in the song “Sorry Sorry”.[8] “What Will Tomorrow Bring” and “97”.

Femi has been nominated for a Grammy award four times in the world music category in 2003, 2010, 2012 and 2013 but has never won.

On 19 December 2014 a management deal between Chocolate City Music Group and Femi Kuti was reached. The news was announced via the Chocolate City Music official instagram account, as well as Audu Maikori social media accounts. Activism Femi, the son of Afrobeat pioneer and political activist Fela Kuti, inherited his father’s zeal for both music and activism.

He started playing the saxophone and keyboard with his father’s band when he was 16 and stepped into the spotlight, writing and singing after his father’s demise. Femi remains politically inclined grooving to high energy funk, jazz and traditional African-fueled songs about political corruption, poverty and primitive living conditions suffered by most inhabitants in Nigeria’s oil-rich nation.

* An Uzomedia Biography

Vía Uzomedia http://ift.tt/2miAXYa

Tillerson to East Asia in shadow of North Korea threat…Read full details

http://ift.tt/2lSZtDX

US President Donald Trump (R) shaking hands with Rex Tillerson (L) as Tillerson's wife Renda St. Clair . / AFP PHOTO / NICHOLAS KAMM

With North Korea’s drive to field a nuclear-armed missile rapidly emerging as President Donald Trump’s first foreign crisis, his top diplomat is heading to a nervous region.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, a former oil executive with no government experience, has yet to make an impact in Washington, where he has not even appointed a senior staff.

But this week he will head as emissary of the world’s top power to Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing to tackle a nuclear stand-off that threatens to tip into a catastrophic war.

Tillerson will arrive in Tokyo on Wednesday for talks with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, who watched Pyongyang’s latest missile tests with alarm.

On Friday, he will be in Seoul and a South Korea mired in a domestic political crisis but also still braced for further provocations from its belligerent northern neighbor.

The secretary will meet Hwang Kyo-Ahn — who is acting president until an election can be held to replace impeached leader Park Geun-Hye — and talk with Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se.

Then, on Saturday, Tillerson will be in China, the United States’ nearest peer as a world power and perhaps the only one that retains any leverage over Kim Jong-Un’s regime.

– Pressure –
China supported previous UN sanctions against North Korea, and has in theory halted coal imports from its smaller neighbor, but it is reluctant to take steps that could see the regime fall.

Since coming to office in January, and especially since the most recent North Korean missile tests last week, Trump has been looking for ways to turn up the pressure on Pyongyang.

“I think it’s well known that we are looking currently at approaches to the North Korea question and there is a range of things that are being considered,” a senior US official said.

Among the other options pushed by the hawkish wing of the Washington foreign policy community are secondary sanctions that would target any Chinese banks that work with Pyongyang.

But officials preparing the trip, briefing reporters anonymously at a time when most senior diplomatic positions in Washington are unfilled, said no major announcements are imminent.

“We’re trying to come up with what the approach of the new administration is going to be,” one said.

No peace treaty was signed after the 1950-53 Korean war, so Seoul and its US ally are technically still in a state of hostilities with its neighbor across a demilitarized zone.

Since the peninsula split, South Korea has become an economic power with democratic institutions, but there are still more than 28,000 US personnel deployed to aid in its defense.

Kim, the third leader in a dynasty that rules through oppression and a personality cult, has proved just as determined as his father and grandfather to develop a nuclear weapon.

North Korea has a small number of bombs and now it is testing an intercontinental ballistic missile and shorter-range rockets that could threaten US bases and cities in the Pacific rim.

– Secondary sanctions –
Most observers see China as the only power with the leverage to get its isolated neighbor to stand down, and existing United Nations-backed sanctions have had little effect so far.

The crisis is shaping up to be the key early challenge of Trump’s presidency and the Pentagon has already provoked China’s ire by deploying the THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea.

US officials insist THAAD is a purely defensive system designed to protect South Korea and Japan from Kim’s missiles, but Beijing sees it as a threat to its own deterrent ability.

And the signals coming out of China are not encouraging for those in Washington who cling to the hope that Beijing may be ready to rein in its small but combative neighbor.

On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Wang Yi implied that the United States and North Korea were equally at fault for provoking the latest crisis and headed towards a “head-on collision.”

Wang urged the US military to halt planned exercises with South Korea, in exchange for Pyongyang halting its nuclear and missile programs — an idea Washington promptly dismissed.

Vía Uzomedia http://ift.tt/2nfoKIy

16 churchgoers die in road accident in northeast India…Read full details

http://ift.tt/2lTvLNG

Indian bystanders walk past a damaged truck after it rammed into a concrete road barricade at an accident site near the village of Nonspung some 60kms west of Shillong in the north-eastern state of Meghalaya on February 26, 2017. Sixteen people were killed and more than 50 injured when a truck carrying churchgoers overturned in a hilly region of northeast India police said. The truck was carrying people from three villages to a local church when it came to grief in the West Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya state.<br />STR / AFP

Sixteen people were killed and more than 50 injured when a truck carrying churchgoers overturned in a hilly region of northeast India early Sunday, police said.

The truck was carrying people from three villages to a local church when it came to grief in the West Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya state.

“The survivors have told us that the truck driver was rash and lost control of the vehicle. After it overturned, many people fell into the deep gorge in this hilly region,” district police Superintendent Sylvester Nongtnger told AFP by phone.

“We rescued everyone from the accident spot and rushed them to hospital but many of the survivors have serious injuries.”

India has some of the world’s deadliest roads with more than 150,000 fatalities annually due to poor roads, badly maintained vehicles and reckless driving.

Last month a school bus carrying dozens of pupils collided with a truck in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state, killing 13 people.

Twelve of the dead were children aged between seven and 14, who were seated near the front of the bus when an oncoming truck collided with it.

Vía Uzomedia http://ift.tt/2mrGEnZ

South Africa struggles to quell xenophobic violence

http://ift.tt/2ltQYNz

PHOTO:Marco Longari/AFP

The South African government on Thursday called for calm after a wave of xenophobic violence in which dozens of shops and houses owned by immigrants have been torched and looted.

Attacks against foreigners and foreign-run businesses have erupted regularly in recent years in South Africa, fuelled by the country’s high unemployment levels and dire poverty.

In the last week, more than 20 shops have been targeted in Atteridgeville, outside Pretoria, while residents in Rosettenville, south of Johannesburg, attacked at least 12 houses.

Many locals have alleged that their targets were brothels and drug dens being run by migrants from elsewhere in Africa, including Nigeria and Zimbabwe.

A march protesting against migrants is due to be held in Pretoria on Friday, raising fears of violence in the city centre.

“I wish to appeal to all South Africans to desist from rhetoric or actions that are xenophobic,” Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba told a press conference.

“There are renewed incidents of violence against foreign nationals in Rosettenville and Pretoria West,” he admitted, blaming a lack of jobs and alleged “drug peddling and prostitution” involving foreigners.

– Anger grows –
Nigeria this week called for the African Union to step in to stop “xenophobic attacks” on its citizens in South Africa, claiming 20 Nigerians were killed last year.

South African authorities dismiss such numbers, saying many violent deaths in the country are due to criminal activity rather than anti-immigrant sentiment.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) has said it was “very concerned” about the march on Friday.

“We condemn the attacks, looting and burning of property owned by foreign nationals and call on citizens to refrain from… taking the law into their own hands,” it said.

“There is no evidence that foreign nationals are responsible for the rise in crime and unemployment.”

Gigaba said that South African authorities were in talks with organisers of Friday’s march, and that the police would ensure there was no violence.

The Right2Know civil action group and other campaigns have called for the event to be cancelled.

In 2008, South Africa experienced its worst bout of xenophobic violence, which left 62 people dead.

In 2015, at least seven people died in similar unrest in Johannesburg and Durban as African immigrants were hunted down and attacked by gangs.

On Wednesday, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said that 35 percent of the labour force was unemployed or has given up looking for work.

Vía The Guardian Nigeria http://ift.tt/2ltRoDS

AFCON 2017: Five interesting Burkina Faso vs Egypt facts to know…See full details

http://ift.tt/2kc6Yll

Five facts for the Africa Cup of Nations semi-final between Burkina Faso and Egypt at Stade de l’Amitie in Libreville Wednesday:

— Egypt have met Burkina Faso twice before in the Cup of Nations, winning a 1998 semi-final 2-0 and a 2000 group game 4-2.

— African legend Hossam Hassan scored twice in the semi-final, putting the Pharaohs ahead just before half-time and adding a second 19 minutes from time.

— The group match was a thriller with Burkina Faso taking a two-goal lead and Egypt clawing back to snatch the lead through Hany Ramzy with five minutes left.

— Both countries are among the current top 10 in Africa with FIFA ranking Egypt third and Burkina Faso eighth. Eighteen places divide them in the world listings.

— Egypt have played 11 Cup of Nations semi-finals, winning seven and losing four, while Burkina Faso have a one win-one loss semi-finals record.

Vía Uzomedia http://ift.tt/2kc9xnd