Nigerian Afrobeat star Femi Kuti carries the activist torch hoisted by his father

Femi Kuti is clearly his own man - an Afrobeat star with a bunch of albums to his credit and a busy world-touring schedule, bringing his 13-piece Nigerian troupe "Positive Force" to World Cafe Live tonight.

Yet Femi is also his father's son, eldest offspring of the pioneering musician and political activist Fela Kuti, who died in 1997 and ironically has become much more visible to the mainstream in recent years, thanks to the Broadway and now world-touring musical of his life, "Fela!," coming to the Academy of Music next March.

Now two months shy of turning 49, Femi started wailing on saxophone and keyboards with his father's band when the son was 16. After his father's demise, he moved into the spotlight, writing and singing his own high-energy funk, jazz and traditional African-fueled "music as message" songs about the political corruption, poverty and primitive living conditions suffered by most inhabitants in his oil-rich nation.

Femi and his sister Yani even took it upon themselves to rebuild the burned-out Lagos nightclub, The Shrine, where his father held court and the police had a field day beating and arresting "dissidents."

The son's latest album, "Africa for Africa," repeatedly puts down the "Bad Government," rallies for self-esteem and unity in the title tune and salutes the rebel legends (from Marcus Garvey to "MLK" and Mandela) in "Make We Remember." The sessions were laid down in the same rough-and-ready recording studio where Fela cut much of his music.

Still, Femi does some things differently. There is no overlap in personnel between his exuberant group of players and dancers, together since 1985, and those of his dad's.

And while his father, often stoked on strong pot, liked to get a tribal groove on with a single song for a half-hour or more, Femi Kuti holds a tight rein over his tunes and players, managing to pack 14 songs onto the new album.

Performing live, "we try and make them even shorter," Femi explained with a laugh in a recent phone chat from Lagos.

What's the thinking?

"It's me being very critical about myself, being very biased against me, putting myself in the mind of people who didn't like me, didn't like my music. If I wanted them to listen, how would I convince them?"

Femi Kuti has taken a similar outside-looking-in attitude to the Broadway-ization of his father's life. "Many Nigerians would criticize everything about the show: 'Why are there whites in the band?' 'Why isn't the actor playing Fela an African?'

"I went to see it in New York with a completely open mind, sat in the audience and cried, impressed with the whole setup. If this play had been created from a Nigerian attitude, the performers would be speaking in pidgin English, and the audience wouldn't know what we're talking about."

(Femi throws only a couple quizzical expressions into "Africa for Africa," like dem bobo, which means "he fooled us," and mago mago, "another word for corruption, skimming from the back door," he explained.)

"But by adding this level of sophistication, the picture [in "Fela!"] is clearer of what's been going on in Africa and Nigeria in particular, and I can marry my father's story and where I'm coming from."

Just last week, a production of "Fela!" finally landed in Lagos to play one night at the New Afrika Shrine for a low admission price, then for two weeks in a posh nightclub where ringside seats are going for as high as $6,500.

"The people who can pay that much, those are exactly the people we need to reach," Femi said. "Sometimes you need to go into the lion's den."

Last week was also marked in Nigeria by a presidential election, where the incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan, prevailed over a former military leader and a self-proclaimed "reformist."

Femi bleakly declared (as he also sings) that there was "no difference between the three candidates" and that he sees the same-old, same-old conditions still prevailing. "We could say we're moving in the democratic process. And it's probably better than going to war. But corruption is still very rampant. The people are hungry and sick. And the government controls the media, so it can't be critical" - Femi's music doesn't get on the airwaves, for example.

"It's a very hypocritical situation. People settle for putting a meal on the table, but they don't know that the rest of the world doesn't suffer every day from power outages and water shortage. Nigerians don't even know about the history of African slavery, because it's not included in the text books."

Femi Kuti and Positive Force, World Cafe Live, 3025 Walnut St., 9 tonight, $33-$53, 215-222-1400, www.worldcafelive.com. "Fela!" plays March 20-25, 2012, at the Academy of Music, Broad and Locust streets, 215-893-1999, www.kimmelcenter.org.