Fela Kuti's Movie, 'The Black President' To Be Released





It has been 17 years since music legend Fela Kuti's death. But as we all know, legends don't really die because their legacy lives on.

The latest news from the Helwani and Kuti families states that Fela's self-financed unreleased movie, 'The Black President' which was destroyed when the Nigerian Military burnt down his shrine will be released.

In a statement from Singer and daughter of Faisal Helwani, Yasmeen Helwani, to NEWS-ONE, she expressed that the movie’s production was put on hold after the soundtracks and some other audio tapes for the movie got burnt at Fela’s Shrine in 1977.


She further added, “My father brought Fela to Ghana to do a few shows back then. They did shoot the movie called ‘The Black President’ and my father produced the entire soundtrack. There was a time frame where Fela was facing political heat that resulted in an incident when the shrine got burnt. The soundtrack, along with several tapes, got burnt in the fire and that put a halt on the release of the movie because they had produced the whole soundtrack of the movie, the voices and everything was gone and basically we were left with only the video."

“The video was with one of the Italian colleagues who worked with them on the project. He had it properly stored in the UK until they could revisit it. But of course Fela passed. Then this Italian gentleman also passed and the video landed in the hands of a production house."


“It will be very difficult for it to come out as the originally intended movie. But when it is done, it will look more like a documentary and not necessarily the movie that they intended at first. Currently we have some of the rights and the Fela family also has some of the rights; so during the Felabration, I had a meeting with Yeni to discuss the way forward because it is a very valuable footage that we want to put out there,” she concluded.

Photo Credit: Global Fusion Productions
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