During his Coachella set in April last year, Seun Kuti  & Egypt 80 debuted “Na Dem” as a live freestyle, turning the stage into a tribunal that named politicians, soldiers, bankers, customs officers and religious figures in the same breath as winch, the Pidgin word for witches The song went viral through festival and fan footage, and became a staple in Kuti’s live sets for over a year before he took it into Metropolis Studios in London.

The studio version, produced by Femi Koleoso of Ezra Collective, locks the band’s foundational afrobeat groove into a collision with Tom Morello‘s signature avant-garde guitar noise. Morello, the Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave guitarist and one of rock’s most consistently political performers, adds distorted guitar lines, cutting straight into a thirteen-piece lineup steered by Koleoso to match the scale of the accusation: four saxophonists, two trumpeters, two guitarists, two bassists, and two drummers.

The lyrics move through Pidgin, English, and Yoruba to deliver an explicit roll call: “Yeye politician / Civil servants wey be governors / All this winch men wey be imam / All this winch men wey be reverend / Wey be bishop wey be pastor.” Every category of person with institutional power gets the same word and treatment: winch, witch. The title’s “Na Dem” (it’s them) is the final finger pointing. This blunt method of naming figures outright comes directly from his father, Fela Kuti, who formed Egypt 80 in 1979 and whose lineup Seun has fronted since Fela’s death in 1997.

The My Life in Movement world tour is underway, having kicked off in early May in Spain before moving through New Zealand and Australia. The band wraps up their Australian dates tonight in Perth before heading to Europe for a summer run hitting Italy, Portugal, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg ahead of a US run in October.

Listen to “Na Dem” and get your copy of the single HERE