LimeWire Music Blog

After what I can only imagine was a hard-fought battle to win his affection, drummer ?uestlove of The Roots has finally procured Jay-Z as a producer of Fela!, a new Broadway musical dedicated to the legacy and music of the Nigerian Afrobeat grandaddy, Fela Anikulapo Kuti (known more simply as Fela). Associate producer ?uestlove lucked out even more than you could believe, though, because Will and Jada Pinkett Smith have also signed on as co-producers, just in time for the show’s opening next week at the Eugene O’Neil Theater.

Since the celebrity producers are joining so late in the game, their involvement in the production won’t be significant, but their mere presence at the opening show on November 23rd is sure to attract some serious star power on ol’ Broadway. Choreographed and directed by the Tony Award-winning Bill T. Jones, Fela!, as The L Magazine so aptly noticed, is the first giant Broadway production I can recall being presented by mostly African-American producers. Let’s hear it for New York, New York, New York…