IN the 1970s, Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat music became the anti-establishment soundtrack of Africa, an anthem for those railing against the many despotic regimes that gripped the continent.

But 15 years after his death in 1997, the man who was a constant thorn in the side of officials in his native Nigeria has been honoured by the authorities with whom he so often tangled.

The Kalakuta commune — a three-storey building down a potholed road that ‘seceded’ from Nigeria — has been turned into a museum with the help of a $250,000 grant from the Lagos government.

“The Afrobeat movement is going stronger,” his son Femi Kuti said as visitors streamed through the house in downtown Lagos.

“More people are aware about what my father stood for ... and the plight of the ordinary African. That’s why we have to keep fighting for a just society for everybody.”

Femi, whose own music has won him countless awards, says the museum is not a sign that the Kuti family’s attitude towards the authorities has softened. But any government endorsement would have been unthinkable in the 1970s, when Fela created Afrobeat — a blend of traditional Yoruba music laced with jazz, brass sounds and stinging political messages that made him the constant target of government beatings, harassment and jailings.

Gone is the three-metre electrified barbed-wire fence erected after soldiers razed the building. That attack, in which his mother was thrown from a window, followed the release of his hit song Zombie, in which he railed against government soldiers who “no go think unless you tell am to think”.

Another son of Fela Kuti, Seun, said: “The message of Afrobeat is so strong that guys who have nothing to do with Afrobeat are now latching on to the name just to sell their records today. But the movement is unstoppable. You have white teenagers in Amsterdam who are playing Afrobeat today.”

Fela’s popularity grew when he began singing about local realities as Nigerians experienced rising levels of poverty despite a stream of petrodollars flowing into the country after Nigeria gained independence in 1960. Twenty years later, absolute poverty had doubled to 30 per cent of the population.

His music still resonates with fans ranging from street hustlers to ageing academics. This week, thousands flocked to the annual weeklong Felabration, one of Africa’s wildest parties, fuelled by music and copious amounts of weed and cold beer.

Fela’s ability to inspire mass protests meant he was feared even by visiting presidents. But his rejection of both Christianity and Islam, his legendary sexual appetite and his fondness for turnip-sized joints made him a pariah to many in a highly religious society. A pile of books in the room he shared with some of his 27 wives includes one on Chinese astrology.

“Fela was an individual who single-handedly rewrote musical history,” said reveller Aderemi Ola, pulling on a cigar-sized spliff as he readied himself for a night of dancing. “As Nigerians, we just feel blessed such an individual was gifted to us.” — The Guardian, London