Maverick musician Seun Kuti has stirred fresh debate with claims about the personal life of his father, the late Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.
Speaking during a recent Instagram livestream, Seun alleged that Fela allowed his wives to have relationships with other men, a decision he described as one of the icon’s major mistakes.
According to him, this arrangement may have contributed to how the music legend contracted HIV, contrary to widespread assumptions that Fela infected his partners.
He said, “Fela made many mistakes. One of the mistakes he made -one day, I saw a video of a lady online saying why are people praising Fela’s legacy despite him giving women HIV and dying of AIDS.
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“I said, ‘Oh, Fela you see yourself?’ If Fela was a traditional man, he would still be alive. I will tell you something about him that you might not have known, Fela’s women all had other men.
“Fela did not keep his women to himself. He believed that as he is free to sleep with all the women, the women are also free to meet other men. His law was that they shouldn’t bring the men to his house.
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“My father doesn’t leave his house to sleep with other women outside, so it was his women who brought HIV home to him. Nobody is perfect. Everybody make mistakes. But Fela is a man that is on the side of humanity.”
Fela, a central figure in African music and activism, famously made headlines on February 20, 1978, when he married 27 women in a single traditional ceremony in Lagos, a move that remains one of the most talked-about moments of his controversial lifestyle.
