Album: Femi Kuti, Day By Day (Wrasse)

Having a famous father is a burden not often borne well, and few famous fathers cast quite as long a shadow as Fela Kuti, a giant of African music.

To his credit, Femi has thoroughly assimilated both his father's musical innovations and his political spirit but, as Day By Day demonstrates, he struggles to impose his own personality, settling for hackneyed bouts of anti-neocolonialist rhetoric like "You Better Ask Yourself". "Oyimbo" opens the album with Kuti hymning the curative power of music, claiming that "harmony and melody will surely bring peace", over a typical guitar vamp punctuated with a fiery, majestic horn arrangement fit to stiffen the sinews. It's one of the most effective tracks, setting up a hypnotic pulse echoed in the repetitive chanted coda ("Politician don't care!") of "Tell Me" and the basic groove of "Demo Crazy". Kuti has steeped himself in jazz, as witnessed by "Do You Know", a litany of heroes – Miles, Coltrane, Ellington, etc – capped by the query, "Do you know Fela Anikulapo Kuti?". The big difference between father and son appears to be Kuti's Christian beliefs – and even he doesn't seem too convinced, judging by the way he prays in "Demo Crazy" for "Jesus Christ to come down with his shining light, or something".

Pick of the album:'Oyimbo', 'Demo Crazy', 'Tell Me'