By Olaitan Ibrahim
Yeni Kuti, a media personality, has revealed that her late father and pioneer of Afrobeats, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, was admitted into the Trinity College of Music, London, in 1958, out of pity.
She explained that Fela struggled the most among his siblings in terms of academic grades, and because of that, his parents wanted him to remain in Nigeria, but his older siblings in London deceived their parents into believing that they had secured admission for him to study medicine.
She stated that when Fela got to London, he was almost rejected by Trinity College of Music due to his poor qualifications, but the admission officer pitied him because he had traveled overseas to study.
Speaking in a recent episode of the TVC programme, Your View, Kuti said, “I want to share a story about my father [Fela].
“When he was in secondary school, you know his parents were academics, so they were pressuring him to study hard. His older brother and sister had gone to university overseas.
“It was him and his younger brother who were with their parents at that time. His younger brother had excellent grades, but Fela was very average. So, his parents didn’t want him to go abroad for studies.
“But his brother wanted him to stay with him in London, so they lied to their parents that Fela was going to a medical school. That was how he got to England.
“They enrolled him in musical school because by time Fela was playing the piano. When he got to the music school, the admission officer said, ‘It’s only because you’ve come a long distance that I’m going to allow you into this school with these results.’ That was how Fela even got the music school out of pity. But look at it today, he is a legend.”