Author seeks shutdown of 'Fela!' Broadway musical

NEW YORK – The author of a book about the late Afrobeat Nigerian superstar Fela Kuti sued the producers of the award-winning Broadway musical "Fela!" to stop performances Monday, saying they stole his work and thought an offer of $4,000 was all he deserved for copying entire portions of his book into the play's script.

Lawyers for Charles Moore demanded in the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that the Broadwayshow, a production set to open next week in London and all other performances be blocked. The lawsuit also sought at least $5 million in damages and a halt to all advertising, promotions and product sales resulting from the show.

Moore is the author of "Fela Fela: Cette Putain de Vie" and the copyright owner of its English translation, "Fela This Bitch of a Life," which the lawsuit maintains is the only authorized biography of composer, singer, musician and political activist Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, who died in 1997 at age 58.

A spokesman for the show's producers, Richard Kornberg, said he was "really shocked at this turn of events" because Moore is on the show's website endorsing it and helping to publicize "how wonderful this production is."

"So the idea he is now suing the production that a year ago he was praising seems weird to me," Kornberg said.

"Fela!" tells the life story of the international music legend, who was known for his fight against corruption and injustice.

The production has been promoted as being co-conceived and written by Tony Award winner Bill T. Jones and Jim Lewis with an emphasis on the energetic Afrobeat music Fela created in the 1960s by combining African sounds with a fusion of jazz, R&B, rock and soul music. It was nominated for a Tony Award as last year's best musical.

The show captures the way Fela delivered his themes of human rights, anti-corruption and individual empowerment through his often-satirical lyrics and monologue during a nightclub act. Humor alternates with serious matters. Audience members are enticed to get up and follow Fela's directions to move their hips.

The lawsuit maintains that the musical copies portions of Moore's book verbatim.

"Entire portions were simply copied from Moore's book and inserted into the script of the musical," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit said the play copies many unique portions of Moore's book, including a fictional character Moore created — Afa Ojo, She Who Commands Rain — as a tribute to Fela's mother, whom Moore depicted in a voice of a ghost speaking to her son.

According to the lawsuit, the book was published in 1982, a year after Fela contacted Moore and asked him to write his life story because he was convinced he was about to die.

Moore agreed to write the book because of the deep friendship that developed between the men after they met in 1974, the lawsuit said. It added that Moore shared an understanding of Fela's spiritual beliefs based on his own knowledge of the Nigerian Yoruba-derived Santeria religion from his native Cuba.

Fela gave Moore complete access to friends, family and personal files and submitted to more than 25 hours of recorded interviews, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit said Moore was first approached by representatives of the Broadway production in April 2007 and was subsequently offered $2,000 for the exclusive right to his book for the Broadway show and another $2,000 for the right to use his book in connection with any audiovisual production.

The lawsuit said Moore's agent rejected the offer in September 2007, saying it was grossly insufficient and should include an advance and participation in the royalty pool.

The theatrical production of "Fela!" debuted in July 2008, and Moore was invited in June 2009 and again in September 2009 to attend rehearsals and consult with the creators, the lawsuit said.

It said that one of the dancers told him she had used the book to shape her character in the musical and that Jones told him he had used material from his book in developing the show.

The lawsuit said Moore also was never compensated for a videotaped interview he did to support the show and that one of the play's producers told him in October 2009 that his book was "looked at" but there was no need to credit him or the book for playing any role in the development of the story line or characters.

Ghana Movie Writers Are 'Holy Thieves'

FOR A very long time, I have tried to understand why our Ghanaian movie directors and producers did not pick books by renowned writers like John Grisham, Jeffery Archer, Sidney Seldon and make movies out of them. 

Well, apparently, I have been wrong all this while, as they seem to be 'stealing' stories of these accomplished writers without giving them any credit. 

Their excuse that they want to direct and produce movies with an African story does not hold because they do not even pick the works of African writers like oNgugi wa Thiong'o,  Chinua Achebe, Atukwei Okai and several other big names in Africa literature. 

I am not a big fan of movies made in Ghana or Nigeria at large, having been disappointed on several occasions by some of these local movies. 

I cursed my stars for wasting my precious time to watch a movie like 'Sexy Angel', 'Hot Fork' etc. and since then, I vowed never to watch any local movie. 

But I hear about a new movie, 'Turn Me On', which I thought would be very interesting. 

And after watching it, I doffed my hat for Priscilla Agyeham 'writer' of the movie 'Turn Me On' (for God's sake, where from this title, who is turning on who?) 

I told a colleague about the movie, feeling excited that at least, for the first time, a Ghanaian scriptwriter had done a marvellous job. 

The movie is about a successful man who was murdered, leaving behind three legitimate children and one illegitimate daughter and property worth about four million Ghana cedis. 

In fact, I was going on and on until my friend started telling me the story line. I paused a little, wondering how he knew plot the so well since he never watched local movies. 

My friend then told me the movie's plot was 'stolen' from a novel originally written by Sidney Sheldon called 'Morning, Noon and Night' in 1995. 

The supposed scriptwriter of 'Turn Me On' dubbed the entire plot of Morning, Noon and Night, and even maintained the first names of the characters in the movie!!!

OMG! How can this be? 
One picks someone's novel, makes a movie out of it and keeps all the credit to him or herself. For Christ's sake, the Harry Porter series were based on a novel written by J.K. Rowling and was dully acknowledged. 

Behaviours such as these can only be found in poverty-stricken countries like Ghana where the legitimate owners cannot sue these plagiarists. 

After all, there is nothing here that will make someone come all the way from Europe, Asia and the Americas to sue them. 

By the way, do you know that one of the latest movies in town, 'Blackmail,' is a copied version of a 2004 award-winning India movie titled 'Aitraaz'? 

It has been copied from A to Z, yet no recognition was given to the original writer. 

I can mention thousands of such movies whose storylines and plots have been copied by these local writers without acknowledging the original authors. 

I do not want to conclude that there are no creative scriptwriters here in Ghana. I believe that these so-called movie directors and producers always want the easy way out. They do not want to invest. 

A friend told me about a renowned movie director cum producer who turned him down when he presented him with a script. 

He did not even read the content, let alone hear the price it was going for. Rather, this producer preferred to plagiarise Indian movies and re-packaged it into English and Twi then present them to the Ghanaian consumer. 

Please let us be serious in this nascent industry of ours if we really want to grow and become like Hollywood and Bollywood. 

Let us be creative and write our own stories. And if we can't, let us give credit where it is due, use good scripts, good directors, splendid cast and improvise so that we can have movies worth buying and watching. 

The critical eye is still watching and will 'hammer' where necessary. 

By Christopher Kotei