Following on from the recently released ‘Live at Cult Studios’ EP, and an extensive world tour (including a ground-breaking performance at Glastonbury Festival), the Grammy nominated musical/socio-political powerhouse, Seun Kuti presents his riveting new release. Revisiting his Grammy nominated 2018 album, Black Times, Seun Kuti enlists The Roots frontman and highly esteemed MC Black Thought to deliver a three track EP, reimagining the tracks to form a perfect hybrid of Afrobeat and Hip-Hop.

Speaking on the collaboration with Black Thought, Seun Kuti shares, “Black Thought delivers a message that connects us to the future, understanding that present and knowing that past. Everytime he speaks, he shows this connection and it means that he is a great artist, able to help the people to be at the right point in history. This is what makes Black Thought super.” 

He continues to explain that “this EP is something new. I don't think that something like this has been done before. Many people used to remix songs, hip hop songs, but I think that this EP is the beginning of a new wave: afrobeat and hip hop, a new beginning of a musical relationship.”

The synergy first found between the two artists on Common’s 2021 single ‘When We Move’ flows without fault across the EP. Title track ‘African Dreams’, is ignited by a driving bass line that ebbs steadily throughout the song, laying a foundation for Black Thought’s encyclopaedic rhyming. After the intro sound bite referencing a call for Black people to gain liberation via a deeper knowledge of self, Black Thought spits a verse of spirited self-affirmation in his trademarked high-brow style, comparing himself to ‘the reflection in the glass, the shadow in the grass’. On the song’s chorus Seun Kuti speaks of the every-day person’s desire for the finer things and to live lavishly like the rulers do, with the response of ‘I don’t blame you’ after each line. In his verse, Seun Kuti shouts out several Pan-Africanists and revolutionaries, including Kwame Nkrumah, Thomas Sankara and his own grandmother Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, asking the question where would he be without the sacrifices they made to actualise the African dream?

After the more upright vibe of the intro track, things begin to groove on ‘Badman Lighter’, with Seun Kuti proclaiming ‘Anywhere my people dey, feel funky’. More instrumentation is introduced to the track, as electric piano and horns interweave over the swinging bass line, giving a feeling that is undoubtedly Afrobeat. Black Thought delivers another slick, multi-syllable rhyming verse, speaking on the resilience of unity ‘Tell the people hold them heads and eyes up/ So we can organise the youth to rise up’. In his verse Seun Kuti takes aim at the establishment who would label him ‘the badman’ and in an act of irreverence states ‘We gon spark the revolution, this badman lighter’. The track is closed out with a saxophone solo to end a song that is equal parts good-time and call to action.

Ending on the epic ‘Ku Ku Kee Mee’ which was first premiered on Okayplayer with an animated video, the track received support from Shortee Blitz on Kiss FM and also selected for the FIFA 23 soundtrack.