Turner prize-winning artist and film-maker, who won a Bafta for debut feature Hunger, will direct and write a movie about the Afrobeat creator and Nigerian activist. British artist-turned-director Steve McQueen has signed up to direct a biopic of Fela Kuti, the larger-than-life musician who created Afrobeat, inspired James Brown to make funk music, almost ran for the presidency of Nigeria, and at one point had 27 wives. Variety reports that McQueen will also co-write the screenplay for Fela with Biyi Bandele.
The film, partly based on Michael Veal’s book Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon, is announced at a time of renewed interest in the controversial Nigerian star – he is also the subject of a new Broadway musical. Fela Kuti, who died of an Aids-related illness in 1997, fused American jazz and funk rhythms with highlife to form Afrobeat, which became hugely popular across the continent and beyond in the 70s.
Film- Maker Steve McQueen
James Schamus of Focus Pictures, which is producing Fela, said the musician might be “the most globally influential pop artist outside the Beatles in the last 50 years”. He added: “The Broadway show is pure joy, but Steve and Biyi’s vision is very cinematic and distinctive. Fela was a revolutionary figure in world culture, and Steve is an artist who had a strong vision of politics and the world even before he made his first film. They are kindred spirits.” Hunger, McQueen’s feature-length directorial debut, about the last six weeks of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands’ life, won him a Bafta for most promising newcomer earlier this year, as well as the Golden Camera award at Cannes and two gongs at the British independent film awards in 2008. McQueen turned to feature film-making after making his name as an artist, winning the Turner prize in 1999.
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