posted on SEADiaspora
Author: Linda Vakunta
Cooking for a rock star and his entourage is exactly what
you would expect, backbreaking work. As I pre-heated a big pot of oil to fry
puff-puff and sliced ripe plantains to make everyone’s all-time favorite West
African side dish, do-do, I wondered what it would be like meeting Seun Kuti. I
was going to find out in a matter of hours when I would meet him before and
after his concert at the UW-Madison’s beautiful Memorial Union. Actually, my
first encounter came during a promotional telephone interview on the popular
Pan African radio show I host with my colleague Alhaji N’jai. In the interview,
Suen Kuti seemed quite the conscious, direct and fearless young man you would
expect any offspring of Fela Kuti to be. His father was a saxophonist,
composer, and pioneer of Afro beat music, not to mention a renowned Pan
Africanist and a political maverick.
