Asa, Seun Kuti, Dele Sosimi, Tony Allen and how not to dance in the Theatre Royal Stratford!

Seun Kuti

Last night was a classic night at 30 Nigeria House, Theatre Royal, Stratford East. The show was the Nigeria Diasporama All Star Band with Asa, Tony Allen, Dele Sosimi and Seun Kuti with the Egypt 80 Band.  A slightly more groovy line up than I have not seen in a long time. As well as all the cultural stuff there is a market in front of the theatre where Proud to Be African Clothing has a stall, which I abandoned early to get into the show, unfortunately it started late, but started well compered by Segun Arinze the first on was Kuku a US based Nigerian singer with the Diasporama band as back up singing in Yoruba and English and warming the crowd up for Dele Sosimi who got people dancing before he even got on the stage much to the ire of the friendly but flustered young ushers. However Afrobeat is infectious and the nyash shaking began, and before people blame badly behaved Nigerians, the first person to get up and start dancing was a middle aged white guy, like I said Afrobeats is infectious.

Dele Sosimi

After shaking nyash, Asa came on stage to the wild applause of the audience, she started with ‘Fire on the Mountain’, Asa is an endearing performer, with a raw and genuine passion. Halfway through she took off her high heel shoes so saying they made her uncomfortable and began to dance with even more abandon. Asa was rapidly followed by Tony Allen. For those of you that have never seen him he is notoriously reticent and is hidden behind his drums, which prompted some wags to question whether it was truly him! He answered them by starting to play, the response was instantaneous as nyashs began to shake again (cue the ushers trying to stop us this failed and they had to call security!), after Tony Allen, Asa and Dele Sosimi returned to sing Fela’s ‘Water no get enemy’, again more dancing, more ushers, more security, more dancing! It was very sweet.

Asa

Kuku returned and sang a beautiful ballad to Nigeria, which calmed the audience down and had the audience choking up and singing along. All very emotional

This was followed by Asa again singing another ballad which again got the crowd in a sentimental mood. After a looooooooong break the Egypt 80 band came in, introduced one by one Baba Ani as they started the first track they had to stop to repair a faulty monitor, which was very fortunate for the young men who were enjoying the gyrations of the back up singers. After the first song, Seun Kuti came in and began to play, again the dancing was infectious.

Before he started the next track ‘Slavemasters’ Seun complained that he was performing sober as he was prevented from smoking his weed before coming on stage! They began playing and inevitably we began dancing, the poor ushers had to get security again!

And then in true Nigerian fashion wahala started!!! Seun pointed out that he was contracted to play 9.45 to 10.15 (it was now 11.00pm) and he was only playing for the pleasure of his fans, so if the security prevented us from dancing he would stop playing, Security refused so he walked off!!!

Na so the evening take end, we all spilled out into the street arguing, laughing and shouting. All in all very Nigerian and despite the lateness and truncated show a good time was had by all