"We have to find hope through the music," said Femi Kuti as he exited the stage of New York's Irving Plaza on Thursday with sweat glistening on his chest. And by the end of this high-energy, groove-driven show, Kuti and his band Positive Force had the crowd believing that music could transport the world into complete stasis. Emblazoned with the emphatic countenance of Fela Kuti, Femi asserted that his father's mission of raising consciousness through rhythmic telepathy would never die. Journeying through the sounds of Nigeria to Haiti to New Orleans to New York and back to Africa, Kuti led the crowd through a history of the beat, while adding his own splash of hip-shaking idiosyncrasy.

A maestro of dance, rhythm and melody, Kuti made sure to keep the crowd in synch with his band for every step of the way. He had the audience jumping on the one, double-clapping on the two and the four, and sliding to the left and right in collective syncopation. A trio of female dancers, clad in the tassled tops and straw skirts of Nigeria, gyrated and vibrated their way across the forefront of the stage in perpetual motion. And Kuti, taking more dance solos than saxophone solos, looked like an atom whirling with endoplasmic dynamism.

But make no mistake, Positive Force's essence goes beyond poppy, boiled down, club music. With the rhythm section at the forefront, the band explored various forms and styles within their lengthy groovefests. In songs like "Truth Don Die," the congas and J.B.'s-esque guitar licks laid down a funk foundation for Kuti's rap-singing and the horn section's timely comping. On top of "Look Around"'s steaming bassline Kuti blew extended, jazzy solos that floated with delicacy into the meditative realm of Santana and John Coltrane. Kuti's timbre on sax doesn't possess the same urgent subversiveness as that of his father, the late, legendary Fela Kuti. But, Kuti's saxophonic voice still offered an impressive range, from ear-piercing poignancy to melodic sanguinity. The libidinous "Beng, Beng, Beng" began with a house-driven beat and escalated into a percussive breakdown that allowed Kuti to interact with just the drummers. Such moments of isolated percussion and saxophone stripped the music down to its core: melodic dilation over fixed polyrhythms.

On occasion, Kuti vanished out of the spotlight for several minutes, allowing the band and audience to dictate the direction of the music. He frequently joined the rest of the horn section, allowing other band members to step up and display their capacities as conductors. With this rotation of leadership, Positive Force showed that they are a coherent unit, thriving on the sum of each component's virtuosity. And the fans responded to this idea of wholeness with a cheer for every solo and a response for every call.

Amidst the frenzy of head-bouncin' and rump-shakin', Kuti still managed to transmit his one-love, one-world message. Kuti and Positive Force communicated the expanse of the African diaspora by funneling the roots of black music through jazz, soul, calypso, creole and Latin idioms. With the incessant repetition of phrases like "Blackman know yourself/Don't forget your past" and "Africa is free," Kuti's performance infused the souls of the crowd with the prospect of political and social sovereignty. Much like Bob Marley and the Wailers, Positive Force achieve a spiritual symmetry with the members of its audience that shatters racial, ethnic and musical boundaries.

In the closing minutes of the concert, Kuti extolled the paternal influence of Positive Force by inciting the assemblage to chant the name "Fela Kuti." With an almost hymnal undertone, Kuti manifested the feeling that the king of Afro-funk was waiting to ascend from the shadows of Irving Plaza. And with every chant, every sonorous phrase, every head-nod, Fela was there -- fully resurrected.

ANDREW SIMON
(March 30, 2000)