On 28 August at Jazz à la Villette 2025, Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 revived “Everything Scatter” with full intensity, carrying that political allegory into the present. Originally recorded by Fela Kuti in 1975, after the police raid on Kalakuta Republic, the piece cast Nigerian society as a bus driving past the compound. Inside, passengers clash: some echo the state view, calling Fela and his community hooligans, smokers, and failures; others defend him as Black President and Abami, mystic and political voice. The quarrel spreads until the whole bus descends into uproar, an image Fela used to show how military regimes vilified him for speaking against corruption and colonial mentality.

On stage in Paris, the allegory was amplified by the band’s collective sound. Interlocking guitar riffs set the frame, with shekere, congas, and drum kit locking into cross-rhythms. A horn section restated Fela’s original lines with cutting phrasing, while Seun alternated between alto saxophone and voice, leading chants and spoken passages that tied the ensemble’s intensity to the song’s history of dissent.

Seun Kuti has directed Egypt 80 since 1997, sustaining the ensemble his father built while expanding its reach. The Paris performance followed his 2024 album Heavier Yet (Lays the Crownless Head) , out via Record Kicks, where he reaffirmed afrobeat as both a musical form and a political stance. At Jazz à la Villette, “Everything Scatter” confirmed how the repertoire continues to live, nearly five decades after its creation.