Femi Kuti talks Fela’s opinion of his first album and why he didn’t win a Grammy in 2003

Kuti’s album, Fight To Win, was nominated for his first Grammy in 2003 under the Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording category.

“When I was nominated for the Grammy the first time, I was basically going to win, it was a super album,” Kuti says during the interview.

The son of late Afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, however, said that he was facing a crisis in his career with the record company he was signed on in France, MCA, when he got his first Grammy nomination.

He said his issue with the record label resulted into his losing the first Grammy nomination because he was blacklisted after sacking his French manager and quitting the company.

In the same chat, Femi Kuti has revealed how his late father, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, condemned his first album, Femi Kuti, calling it useless only to later praise him after the release of his second album.

“Fela condemned my first album. He said it was a very useless album. He even went public to insult me, he abused me very well,” Femi Kuti says.

He went on to disclose that although he felt pained at the criticism, he went ahead to do more work and release his second body of work, which his late dad acknowledged as being a better album.

“When I released my second album, Fela praised me and told everyone that his son has done something he’s proud of,” the Grammy nominee shares.