British filmmaker Steve McQueen is set to direct a feature film based on the life of African musician and activist Fela Anikulapo Kuti, according to a report in Variety. The movie, Fela, will have a screenplay by McQueen and Biyi Bandele, based on the Michael Veal book Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon.
Kuti, already the subject of the Broadway musical Fela!, died in 1997 and was the pioneer of the Afrobeat musical style, a fusion of American jazz, funk and West African drums. Casting for the film, which has been developed independently of the musical, will be announced at a later date.
McQueen made his feature directing debut last year with the Irish hunger strike drama Hunger, which won the BAFTA Carl Foreman Award for the Most Promising Newcomer.
