In Lagos, a restaurant is an enduring tribute to Nigerian music legend Fela Kuti

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14 hours ago

In Lagos, Nigeria's commercial and creative capital, food is doing something unusual. It's keeping alive the spirit of a musician.
Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, one of Africa's most influential artists, was the architect of Afrobeat (not to be confused with today's Afrobeats, which was born from it).
Fela pioneered his politically charged, musically expansive sound in the early 1970s by blending jazz, highlife, funk and Yoruba rhythms. He paired these with lyrics that took aim at corruption, oppression and postcolonial disillusionment. His songs were as much rallying cries as they were works of art.
Today, dishes named after Fela's protest anthems – and restaurant soundscapes steeped in Afrobeats – are making dining in Lagos a journey through African music history.
As a musicologist involved in African Studies, I research the legacy of Fela Kuti and how it manifests in new forms today, in music, political life and even food. I first raised Fela's legacy in food in a 2022 article for the book that accompanied a major exhibition in France called Fela Anikulapo-Kuti: Rébellion Afrobeat.
For me the new Lagos trend raises a question: do these culinary tributes preserve the radical edge of Fela's art – or do they dilute it by commercialising it?
From protest songs to plated specials
In May 2025, The Afrobeat opened at EbonyLife Place, a high-profile entertainment and hospitality complex in Lagos. It markets itself as: 'The world's first restaurant dedicated to celebrating Africa's vibrant music genre.'
The Afrobeat offers not just meals but a fully curated cultural experience. Yet it was not the first to blend food and Fela.
That distinction belongs to Kuti's Bistro, launched in 2019 by the family of Seun Kuti, Fela's youngest son. It's currently closed for diners but still delivers meals.
Positioned as a pan-African eatery, the bistro's dining area was steeped in Afrobeat imagery and sound, with walls adorned in Fela-inspired art. Its dishes draw on regional African culinary traditions, from Nigerian staples to cross-continental flavours.
Like so many restaurants in Lagos today, its playlist was dominated by Afrobeats, the electronically driven pop music now dominant across west Africa and its diasporas. Afrobeats owes much to Fela's pioneering spirit.
The menu is where the homage becomes striking. Meals at Kuti's are named after some of Fela's most famous songs: breakfast plates called Yanga, starters like Shakara, hearty mains such as Feast for Nation, Roforofo Fight, and I No Be Gentleman. Even desserts bear provocative titles like Trouble Sleep Yanga Wake Am and Expensive Shit.
These are not just playful references. They're a way of transforming Fela's work into living memory.
The pairing of food and music creates a layered cultural experience. The textures and spices of the food evoke place and tradition; the music anchors the experience in a living, evolving sound. Diners are invited to consume Fela's legacy with all their senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and even memory.
In this way, these restaurants function as more than dining spaces. They are cultural archives. They stage a performance of history and identity every time a plate leaves the kitchen.
Preserving or packaging the radical?
Still, the shift from protest anthem to menu item raises questions.
Can a song like Expensive Shit, originally a razor-sharp satire on state harassment, retain its political bite when it is served as a dessert on a polished ceramic plate? Does turning Roforofo Fight into a main course preserve its cultural meaning? Or does it risk reducing it to a quirky marketing hook? This tension is not unique to Fela's legacy.
Around the world, radical art often undergoes a process of 'heritagisation' and commodification. It becomes a celebrated cultural product, sometimes losing the confrontational edge that defined it.
Yet this transformation does not necessarily strip away its significance. It can create new pathways for engagement. For younger diners, who may know Fela only as a name in music history or a face on a T-shirt, a menu item can become a spark of curiosity. It might prompt a search for the original song, leading to a deeper encounter with his music and the politics behind it.
A legacy that adapts
Fela's artistic and political vision was always about creating spaces where African identity could be expressed on its own terms.
In the 1970s and 80s, that space was his nightclub, the Afrika Shrine, where music, conversation and resistance flowed freely. In 2025, it might be a restaurant table in Lagos, where I No Be Gentleman arrives as a sizzling platter of suya-spiced beef.
These spaces also speak to the adaptability of Fela's legacy. His music has inspired entire genres; his persona has been invoked in theatre, literature, political protests, art exhibitions, films, and now dining.
Each iteration, like the opening of the New Afrika Shrine in 2000, reinterprets him for new audiences, keeping his name and ideas in circulation.
Today's blending of food and music illustrates how cultural memory works in Africa. Artistic legacies can be preserved not just through direct performance, but through symbolic transformation into other mediums; mediums that engage the senses, draw on tradition, and thrive in the global marketplace.
The Afrobeat-themed restaurants of Lagos are not just curiosities for tourists or novelties for locals. They are living experiments in how to honour a cultural icon while making him relevant to the present.
Whether these spaces ultimately radicalise or simply entertain, they ensure that Fela Anikulapo-Kuti remains part of the city's sensory landscape; not only heard, but tasted. And in a rapidly changing Lagos, that may be one of the most enduring tributes possible.