This came out in 2000 — or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Following in the footsteps of a famous father can be no easy task — just ask Frank Sinatra Jr. and Julian Lennon. Or Femi Kuti, son of Nigerian icon Fela Kuti.
Not only did Fela literally invent a style of music — Afrobeat, a fusion of percolating James Brown funk, African highlife and big-band jazz — but his radical politics and anti-government stance also turned him into a folk hero on the level of Bob Marley by the time of his death from AIDS in 1997. Big shoes to fill? You’d never know it from Shoki, Shoki, Femi’s assured and accomplished third solo effort. Building on the same Afrobeat base of his father (whose band he led for several years), Femi jacks up the funky drums and chicken-scratch guitars to world-beat party speed, creating an exuberant, hypnotizing backdrop for his Maceo Parkeresque sax lines, enthusiastic vocals and Afrocentric positivity. Like most sons, he doesn’t surpass his famous father. But unlike a lot of them (Hank Jr., take note) he isn’t an embarrassment either.
