Follow along with the action at Worthy Farm with reviews, photos and more as artists including Femi Kuti, Jamie Webster and 47Soul open the day’s stages
Forty minutes before Afrobeat maestro Femi Kuti begins, the crowd is already beginning to gather, brought in by soundchecks and practices – an a cappella run of Oyimbo, repeatedly chanting “all in the name of peace”, teases the show’s narrative. When Kuti comes out, he runs on to the stage carrying a saxophone in a shocking burst of energy for this sometimes sleepy midday slot. Accompanied by his band Positive Force, which consists of four brass players, two guitarists, two percussionists and three backing singers who double up as booty swinging dancers, Kuti sets the stage for a party to begin.
A pioneer of pop productions melting into Afrobeat, he begins his set with Truth Don Die. It’s striking how immediately the crowd is dancing with him, but the familiarity with Kuti only testifies how much of a staple the Kuti family have been to Glastonbury. There’s only a single Nigerian flag flying, with a football T-shirt and, er, an inflatable ghost tied to it (“so our family can spot us on TV”, says the holder) and as such the crowd is drawn from a broad pool of Glastonbury attendees. He taps into the long legacy of Nigerian political music, performing Stop the Hate with the balance of righteous fury and peace-and-love messaging which defines his oeuvre. He takes a moment to tell us “people, there’s just too much pain everywhere” namechecking Congo, Kenya, Somalia, Nigeria, Ukraine, Russia (to more hesitant applause), and Gaza. “It’s why we’ve got to spread love.”
