Seun Kuti has a new album coming out next month: “From Africa With Fury: Rise.”  On the title track, he sings: “I dey cry for my country / When I see am in the hands of these people … ” and then exhorts his listeners:

We must rise up against the petroleum companies
We dey use our oil to destroy our land oh ho
We must rise against the diamond companies
Wey dey use our brothers as slave for the stone
We must rise against our African rulers
Wey be black man for face, white man for yansh
We must rise against companies like Mosanto and Halliburton
Wey dey use their food to make my people hungry

He has been doing the expected press run, but with a difference. Unlike many of his Western peers, he doesn’t shy away from talking hard politics,  including why we’re not seeing Egypt-style revolutions in Sub-Saharan African countries and what he thinks about African political leaders. Here’s an excerpt from a recent interview:

Sub-Sahara Africa is very divided … We don’t have unifying culture. In the north we have Islam and it’s unified by that. I so want to see my brothers with the voice to speak together in every part of Africa … “Everything is against the common man in Africa … No one cares what happens to you. Everyone has to toe the line. Nothing is cheap in Africa, though we are the poorest. Everything is imported, costs too much, so this is about the young man in Africa, fury, being an African, a young man with everything against you. That’s why I wrote the song ‘Rise.’ People want to change things for themselves. ‘Rise,’ for me, is the [center] of the album, where I’m speaking my mind the most: How I wanted to think about Africa, how our rulers treat us, how we should see ourselves, what we want for our children … What do African leaders have in common?” “They talk a lot of shit.”

Ouch.

Update: The video for “Rise” is here.