Paper Dress' 19th Birthday: Fela Kuti

A birthday night at Paper Dress Vintage in London, billed as a tribute to the Nigerian musician Fela Kuti, whose Afrobeat music is celebrated here rather than performed by the artist himself.

The event marks the nineteenth birthday of Paper Dress Vintage and is built around Fela Kuti, the Nigerian bandleader and saxophonist who founded Afrobeat in Lagos in the late 1960s. His music fuses highlife, funk and jazz with driving polyrhythmic grooves and politically charged lyrics, and it became one of the defining sounds of West African popular music. Because the evening honours his work, it is a tribute and not a performance by the original artist, so the line-up on the night is presented by the event's organisers.

Paper Dress Vintage hosts concerts and shows in London, and this birthday programme brings its usual audience together for a celebration of a single, widely influential catalogue. The night suits listeners who want to hear Afrobeat played live in a venue with a clear focus on music and vintage culture.

For anyone deciding whether to book, the key point is that this is a birthday celebration centred on Fela Kuti's legacy, so it will appeal most to those interested in Afrobeat, its horn-led arrangements and its history as a music of protest and dance.