Fela Kuti raised the bar for African music – Rhian Benson

Fela Kuti raised the bar for music, especially African music, says Ghana’s soul singer Rhian Benson.

In an interview with the Music Television (MTV) in UK, Rhian Benson said the late Fela Kuti was an amazing musician, especially looking at his genre of music which was “fresh and challenging and complex as when he first created it.”

According to Rhian, who is also a MOBO award winner, if Fela Kuti was to be alive, she would have worked with him.

“I think it would have to be Fela Kuti…he’s raised the bar for music, especially African music, so someone like that would be absolutely amazing to work with or even just to watch work”, she answered MTV when asked if she could work with any artist dead or alive, who would be at the top of her list and why.

Rhian says she was really very fortunate to have seen Fela Kuti perform live when she was a kid on a school trip to Cameroun and he was just amazing.

Rhian Benson released her debut album, ‘Gold Coast’, in 2003 which featured production efforts from the likes of Grammy-winning producers James Poyser (Lauryn Hill/D’Angelo) and Bob Power (Chaka Khan/A Tribe Called Quest).

According to MTV, the album boasted a US R&B Top 10 and UK Top 30 hit single with ‘Say How I Feel’, but due to circumstances beyond her control and the untimely loss of her mother, Rhian was forced to withdraw from the music scene for eight long years.

Her new album, ‘Hands Clean’, is out now and her new single, ‘Be’, will be out today June 6, 2011.

She is billed to perform live acoustic music at the London School of Economics (LSE), her former school, this Monday June 6, 2011 night.

By Ekow Quandzie