Ahead of their new double album, Femi and Made Kuti reflect on the Afrobeat pioneer’s legacy, their complex family, and the problems Nigeria still faces

The night 1,000 soldiers descended on Fela Kuti’s home, set it on fire and threw his elderly mother out of the window is etched into his family’s memory and music folklore for ever. On 18 February 1977, Fela’s eldest son, Femi, was at school when the compound – known as the Kalakuta Republic, a raucous commune that the musician had declared an independent state – was raided, a violent retaliation to the album Zombie, Fela’s biting attack on the mindless personnel of Nigeria’s military regime. Femi returned to find friends had been beaten, women raped.

“We all thought my father was dead on that day,” says Femi, who was in his teens at the time. Fela survived, but his mother’s fall proved fatal. “It was like a war zone. It took me several years to overcome that nightmare. Even seeing soldiers on the streets as a young boy, I was afraid they’d attack me because I was Fela’s son.”