'Fela!' - Afrobeat’s King, Recrowned
source: http://theater2.nytimes.com/2008/09/05/theater/reviews/05fela.html
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The big-talking title character of “Fela!,” the pulse-racing new show about the Nigerian musician and activist Fela Anikulapo Kuti, is not someone you rely on for literal truth. For this self-defined “black president” of his own republic of rebellion, to speak is to magnify, to exaggerate, to mythologize.
But the grandiose claims that Fela, played with inexhaustible swagger by the remarkable Sahr Ngaujah, makes for his music wind up feeling dead accurate. In the percussion section in his band, he says early in the show, you feel “the pulse of the world, the impulse of life.” And darned if 10 minutes into this production, which opened Thursday night at 37 Arts, you don’t find yourself believing this as gospel truth.
But the grandiose claims that Fela, played with inexhaustible swagger by the remarkable Sahr Ngaujah, makes for his music wind up feeling dead accurate. In the percussion section in his band, he says early in the show, you feel “the pulse of the world, the impulse of life.” And darned if 10 minutes into this production, which opened Thursday night at 37 Arts, you don’t find yourself believing this as gospel truth.
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- groups:
- Music, Art, Under the Radar
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- Music, Art, New York City, Under the Radar, 6 more
