As a student in Manchester in the 80s, I had several late-night arguments with Andrew Hussey (now an academic and occasional writer for this paper) about whether Nigerian musician Fela Kuti's revolutionary politics (for which he suffered great persecution) were more or less important than his hideously reactionary attitudes towards women (he thought husbands had the right to do whatever they liked to their wives). The one thing everyone agreed on, however, was that Kuti's music was extraordinary; an authentic Afrobeat sound of unparalleled experimentation and influence. Strange, then, to hear several voices in Alex Gibney's documentary asserting that until Bill T Jones staged his Broadway production of Fela!, surprisingly few people in New York knew about the legendary figure. Building his film around rehearsals for the show (a device that doesn't entirely work), Gibney unearths a wealth of archive footage that reaffirms Kuti's superstar status, and watches as Jones wrestles with the contradictions that made the musician such a troublesome icon – confronting some, sidestepping others. It's an intriguing piece, boosted by the open and honest recollections of Kuti's friends and family, and buoyed up by fragments of live footage, which remain utterly electrifying.