Seun Kuti

Did You Know?

• Seun Kuti became interested in music at age five and began playing with Egypt 80 at nine.
• He studied at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and was a member of the African Funk ensemble River Niger.
• His elder brother Femi Kuti has also been nominated for a Grammy in the World Music Category without a win.

Biography

In 2008 the band released Many Things, the first album under the name Seun Kuti & Egypt 80. He appeared on Calle 13's song "Todo se mueve" from their 2010 album Entren los que quieran. Kuti received an honorary invitation to perform live at Industry Nite for the first time in 2014. Kuti and Egypt 80 released their sixth studio album Heavier Yet (Lays the Crownless Head) in 2024 via Record Kicks, their first full-length in six years after the Grammy-nominated Black Times. He supported it with the global Heavier Yet Tour across Europe, Asia, and Oceania in late 2024 and 2026. In 2026 Kuti stated on the Saleh Meditate podcast that his politically conscious Afrobeat style had led to systematic blacklisting from Nigeria's mainstream industry for over 13 years.

Politics

In January 2012 Kuti took part in the Occupy Nigeria protests against President Goodluck Jonathan's fuel subsidy removal policy. On Jidenna's 2019 album 85 to Africa, Kuti voiced an outro calling for an African peoples powered highway connecting the Diaspora and Motherland. In November 2020 he led the revival of his father's defunct political party Movement of the People, aiming to register it with Nigeria's electoral body INEC. In fall 2023 he signed the open letter Artists Against Apartheid in support of Palestinians.