Berlin’s HKW to host concert and discussion honouring Fela Kuti

The annual gathering, titled A Felasophical Gathering, brings together musicians, scholars, activists and storytellers to explore Kuti’s work beyond his role as a musician, including his political activism and philosophical ideas.

This year’s programme will feature a lecture-performance by Ghanaian multi-instrumentalist, sound sculptor and educator Nii Noi Nortey, titled ‘What Happens When History Is Not Only Remembered, but Sounded?’

Nortey’s presentation will draw on the ideas of Senegalese historian and anthropologist Cheikh Anta Diop, particularly his emphasis on African historical agency, alongside Kuti’s view of music as a form of political consciousness.

The performance will explore sound as a means of engaging with historical memory, displacement and survival. Beginning with the concept of the ‘Door of No Return’, Nortey will examine how inherited, adapted and newly created instruments, improvisation, breath and feedback can convey histories carried through bodies, objects and cultural practices.

Rather than attempting to reconstruct the transatlantic slave trade, the performance will consider how sound might illuminate its continuing effects and how listening could offer a way of relating to the past in the present.

The concert programme will open with the Berlin Afrobeat Company (BAC), founded in West Berlin in 1978 following a performance by Fela Kuti and his band, Africa 70, at the Berlin Jazz Days. Several musicians associated with that performance remained in Berlin, contributing to the development of the local Afrobeat scene.

The BAC now comprises international musicians based in Berlin who perform Kuti’s music and support its continued development through live shows and other initiatives.

Ghanaian group Santrofi will headline the concert. Founded in Accra in 2019, the ensemble combines traditional highlife influences with contemporary sounds, including elements of hip hop.

The group’s members developed their musical experience through performances with established Ghanaian musicians, including Ebo Taylor, Gyedu-Blay Ambolley, Pat Thomas and AB Crentsil. They have also collaborated with contemporary Ghanaian artists, including KiDi, Yaw Tog, AratheJay and Black Sherif.

Santrofi’s debut album, Alewa, was released in 2020 and received international attention for its engagement with classic highlife. In 2023, the group performed with Berlin-based ensemble Omniversal Earkestra, with the collaboration subsequently released as a live album.

Their latest studio album, Making Moves, was released in 2025 through Outhere Records. The project draws on highlife traditions, incorporating Afrobeat horns and rhythmic elements into songs addressing everyday experiences.

The event forms part of ongoing efforts to examine Kuti’s musical and political legacy through performance, discussion and interdisciplinary approaches to African history and culture.