Femi Kuti
Concert of Colors
July 20, 2025
This review is from Concert of Colors, billed as “one of the nation’s longest-running, largest, free and global music festivals.” With multiple stages and venues, the festival mainly took place inside and outside of the Detroit Institute of Arts in Detroit’s cultural district.
Even at a free and open to the public festival, your set can be so in demand that there’s a line around the block with patrons hoping they’ll be able to get in.
That’s the story of Femi Kuti, the eldest son of Nigerian musical icon Fela Kuti, who abrought down the house during his closing set at Concert of Colors.
Putting him and his 12-piece band inside and in a seated venue was a wild choice because his brand of afro-beat -- a genre innovated and perfected by his late father -- is pure energy and movement and dance.
Plenty of people did move and dance, filling the aisles of the Detroit Film Theatre inside of the Detroit Institute of Arts and dancing throughout Femi’s 90-minute set. This gorgeous theatre dates all the way back to the 1920s, and primarily functions as a movie theatre today.
The location makes sense – this was one of the biggest and most anticipated shows of the weekend at Concert of Colors.
It delivered on nearly even level, even with a sound issue in the beginning of the show that had Femi ranting about the sound person off-stage. In a true show of love that permeated throughout his set, Femi later apologized to the crowd and the sound person.
There was so much to soak up visually and audibly during Femi’s sets.
Let’s start with the trio of back-up singers and dancers, who were a focal point throughout with their moves and their voices. They never stopped moving or adding something to the show, offering a call-and-response to Femi’s vocals that pulls from West African musical tradition and was filtered primarily through the Black church here in the United States. Their outfits and face paint also pulled from West African tradition.
Alongside Femi’s singing, saxophone and keys, his band built these intricate polyrhythms, layering rhythm after rhythm on top of each other until it’s hard to tell where one beat ends and the other one begins. A full horn section, a drummer with endless energy, percussion to fill in the gaps and a guitarist that could shred and dance at the same time. I would never want to be in the band that had to follow this group!
The message was there, too, just like Fela Kuti would’ve done back in the day.
“I know music can be political and violent, but it’s all about love at the end of the day.”
That’s one of the powerful things that Femi said during his set, sprinkling in ideas and praise for the crowd throughout. It followed a theme that resonated throughout the Concert of Colors all weekend: an idea of detaching from a larger political contribution and contributing to something inside of ourselves and inside of our community.
There’s a reason why there was a line around the block for Femi Kuti, and a reason he brought the whole festival home at the Concert of Colors. I’m glad he was there to remind us.
