While speaking with Sandra Isidore, the woman credited with largely influencing and introducing Fela Anikulapko Kuti to Black consciousness on the show, Sowore said he felt so passionately about the cause,and this drove him to audition for the role. “They told me you have to sing, they made me do everything 'scatter scatter,'“ he said.
Omoyele Sowore, presidential aspirant on the platform of the African Action Congress (AAC), has revealed that he auditioned for the part of Fela on Broadway to depict late Afrobeat Legend, Fela Anikulapo Kuti.
He made the revelation during a conversation on MECO TV in Los Angeles as part of the #TakeItBack movement’s interaction with Nigerians in the Diaspora ahead of the 2019 general election.
While speaking with Sandra Isidore, the woman credited with largely influencing and introducing Fela Anikulapko Kuti to Black consciousness on the show, Sowore said he felt so passionately about the cause,and this drove him to audition for the role.
“They told me you have to sing, they made me do everything 'scatter scatter,'“ he said.
Recounting her experience with Fela, which changed the way she viewed the world, Isidore said: “When Fela came to America, Fela came with colonial mentality, when Fela left America he left a black man."
On whether it was true that Flea had immigration problems while in America, Isidore said “Yeah, Fela had problems… I just wanted so much for Africa to be in her present because Africa is the backbone of the world. I believe that Nigeria is the answer to our evolving, so 23rd can reach our triumph”.
Isidore wondered why the western world relies on Africa yet Africa remains underdeveloped and lacks respect.
“One of the answers I found is that we don’t respect ourselves," she said. "Until we respect ourselves, who else would respect us? We have a job to do and that’s why I’m going to support you."
Responding to her query on why Nigerians in the Diaspora don’t have absentee ballot facilities, Sowore said: “They don’t want Nigerians to vote, even the ones at home; they keep stealing their votes and manipulating ghetto results.
"They know that if Nigerians in the Diaspora have access to vote, it would be transparent because they can’t touch that; they can’t control that."