Seun Kuti, the son of the late Afrobeat pioneer Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, has revealed that his father did not restrict his wives from engaging in relationships with other men.
The singer said this practice was one of Fela’s greatest mistakes, alleging that some of the women later contracted HIV from their partners and passed it on to the late musician.
During a recent Instagram livestream, Kuti addressed rumors that Fela was responsible for bringing HIV to his women, insisting that the opposite was true.
He said, “Fela made many mistakes. One of the mistakes he made -one day, I saw a video of a lady online saying why are people praising Fela’s legacy despite him giving women HIV and dying of AIDS.
“I said, ‘Oh, Fela you see yourself?’ If Fela was a traditional man, he would still be alive. I will tell you something about him that you might not have known, Fela’s women all had other men.
“Fela did not keep his women to himself. He believed that as he is free to sleep with all the women, the women are also free to meet other men. His law was that they shouldn’t bring the men to his house.
“My father doesn’t leave his house to sleep with other women outside, so it was his women who brought HIV home to him. Nobody is perfect. Everybody make mistakes. But Fela is a man that is on the side of humanity.”
It can be recalled.that Fela made national headlines when he married 27 women in a single traditional ceremony on February 20, 1978, in Lagos.
