His father Fela was a pioneer of politically engaged Afrobeat.  Now Femi Kuti, who headlines next week's Kilkenny Arts Festival, is continuing the tradition, he tells Jim Carroll, who also looks forward to other festival highlights.

THERE are times talking to Femi Kuti when you forget that there's actually a musician on the other end of the phone. Be it scathing criticisms of some development agencies at work in Africa or pessimism about corrupt politicians leading naive nations, Kuti seems more enthused and energised when the questions are of a political bent. At times, he does sound more like an aspirant councillor on the election stump than a musician flogging tickets for a forthcoming show. Of course, he's quite happy to talk about shows at The Shrine, his early work with US rappers or the enjoyment he still gets from touring. But then there's a mention of Live8 and he's off in that direction again.

Like father, like son? Certainly, Kuti's father, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, was as much a political agitator and activist as he was an Afrobeat pioneer who brought the sounds of Lagos to the world in the 1970s.

Yet, there are subtle differences apparent in how the younger Kuti works. Instead of the antagonism and provocation which were Fela's stock in trade, and which led to a concerted campaign from the Nigerian authorities to shut him up, there's measured opposition, well-argued arguments and passionate commentary. Femi may take a different approach, but the effect is still the same.

"Everyone has a purpose in this life," he says. "I have found my purpose and I clearly believe in what I am doing. I know I will spend the rest of my life doing this and I will teach my son that the best thing to do is follow the truth and be righteous. Hopefully, he will influence his friends and that will be repeated by other fathers and sons, too, and that those beliefs will be translated into action."

Other musicians, take note. "It's not for me to tell other musicians what to do," Kuti says. "But it's not good enough to just make a record and tour and then pretend to yourself that you have done all you need to do for the world. No, that's not right."

Musically, Kuti has done more than alright. His last release, Live at The Shrine, caught him burning down the house with a frenzied set at the Lagos club he had spent a couple of years building and developing. After a slew of well-received international releases, this was Kuti bringing it all back home.

Named after his father's infamous Lagos venue, The Shrine is where all of Femi's Afrobeat experiments begin. "It's also a place which I hope will be able to help new acts. It's a venue where they can play shows and learn more about what they're doing." As with The Shrine, Kuti believes that building infrastructures can help communities and nations to grow. "The money which development people and organisations spend on Africa is not being used efficiently. They need to build Africa. We need good schools. We need railway lines running north, south, east and west. We look at Europe, where a band like us can travel by rail all around the continent, and see things which could be happening in Africa."

Should such development happen, Kuti feels the changes would be immense. "The differences something like a proper railway would make to people's lives would be huge. They would get to travel, they would meet each other, there would be an exchange of ideas and the economies of different areas within Africa would benefit."

Kuti believes that what Africa needs to do most is to put corruption on the run. "If there was no corruption, there would be adequate education, health care and employment for everybody. If Africa was truly democratic, it would just rise, but there is no motivation to change at the moment." Part of the reason for such pessimism, he says, is down to the development agencies who have set up shop all over the continent.

"I don't think they come to Africa with good intentions in the first place. It's also about corruption, about how to enrich some people who have manipulated the system in order to get the best for themselves. The agencies come here, stay in nice hotels and have conferences. They don't try to or want to understand the real problems which Africans face."

Kuti has worked with such organisations, and he says they didn't like it when he talked about what he saw. "Yes, I received a lot of pressure from the negative people in those organisations. They wanted to continue to use the resources they had for their own personal benefit. So when I spoke out about what I saw was happening, they didn't like it and made things hard for me."

Events like last year's Live8 make Kuti sigh with frustration. "It didn't work," he says curtly. "But these events never do. The main thing I see is the hypocrisy in the organisers' concern for Africa. What they're doing is not as effective as it should be, and this applies to most development agencies who focus on Africa. Remember all that aid money for Ethiopia? What happened to it? Western people feel sorry for hungry children and give money to these charities. But the children have been poor for a while and will be poor for a while longer."

Kuti has experiences first-hand the black hole into which such money and aid can disappear. He set up the Movement Against Second Slavery (Mass) in 1998 as a lobby group for local issues in Nigeria, but was forced to disband it. "Everyone was coming after me and my money and the aims of Mass were ignored. People were demanding money for things which would contribute nothing to the people we were trying to help."

These days, Kuti prefers to operate on his own. "I found out that you don't need an organisation to speak the truth. My music and my opinions are already there for people to hear. I believe in what I am doing and I always believe in speaking the truth. My fans and friends and family will always believe me because they know I will never betray the cause."

Like father, like son then after all. "My family history acts as an encouragement to me," he says proudly. "When I trace my history back, back to my forefathers and beyond, it gives me the motivation not to fail.

"I have many memories of my father, and most of them are personal to me and my family, but the one thing he taught me was to be individual. He taught me to do things my own way. As I get older, I keep finding that to be the best policy."

Femi Kuti plays the Village, Dublin on August 8th and the Ormonde Hotel, Kilkenny on August 11th