In February 1977, more than 1000 soldiers attacked an artists' commune in Lagos. Beating, raping and severely injuring a number of the commune's residents, the forces also destroyed buildings and instruments. One elderly woman was killed after being thrown from a window.

Sound like a good basis for a rousing stage musical?

It does if you're Antibalas, the fiery New York collective keeping alive the musical legacy of Afrobeat co-creator Fela Kuti.

"They don't gloss over or omit the degree of violence that Fela and his whole crew sustained,” says Martin Perna, a saxophonist and the founder of Antibalas, about the musical Fela!

“[The violence] is not something they politely sweep aside [to] move to some rousing dance number. They deal with a lot of Fela Kuti complexities.”

Fela! opened off-Broadway in 2008, receiving good reviews and moving to Broadway, thanks to hip-hop artist Jay Z and actor-rapper Will Smith adding weight as producers.

The late Fela Kuti – like the rhythmic and seditious Afrobeat movement he spearheaded – was a man of complexities. An innovative musician and dancer, the self-proclaimed Black President was also a dissident, equally famous for his mysticism, diatribes, countless wives and fondness for marijuana. Born to activist parents in 1938 (his mother was a leading Nigerian feminist, Funmilayo Ransome Kuti – the woman thrown from the window of the commune), Fela Kuti was both revered and reviled. Jailed and beaten throughout his career, he was popular in Africa and the West, drawing more than a million people to his funeral in 1997.

“He was so complex,” says Perna, “that really you can't go and see the Broadway show and feel that you've learnt everything, but it's a very good starting point."

The 11-piece Antibalas are making their Australian debut tour.

"We're thrilled,” says Perna. “The first [tour offer] came around eight years ago. I think the guy who wanted to bring us had a heart attack when he figured out how much the plane tickets were going to cost . . . So whoever survived him, you know . . ."

Has been saving up for eight years?

"Exactly,” laughs Perna, “I think the [American] dollar's low enough that they can finally afford us."

View on-line videos for either the Broadway musical, or a regular Antibalas gig, and you'll find the energy contagious. Likewise, over four albums and many EPs, Antibalas have impressed with funky, super-charged arrangements, making this Sydney debut a hotly anticipated affair.

"There's a lot of energy,” says Perna, describing Antibalas' stage strategy as a series of “focused channeling” exercises, where “building up the force of the music” means reaching “crazy rocking places”. They're also damn danceable.

Perna says Eddie Palmieri's New York Salsa orchestras were as much an inspiration for the formation of Antibalas in 1998 as Fela Kuti. Yet it's Kuti's Afrobeat that ultimately won out, both rhythmically and lyrically.

"We have always acknowledged that we're in a very different political context than Fela,” admits Perna. Still, talk of political corruption, oppression and military evils, fuel both Kuti's lyrics and those of Antibalas.

Is Perna optimistic about music effecting social change?

"Yeah, definitely, or else I wouldn't be doing it. But . . . music is just one part of it. Even if we do somehow inspire or catalyse some thought process in a fan so they [don't] . . . join the army, or they think about how the patriarchy has influenced them in the way they treat women . . . They might change, but then there are still whole systems of patriarchy within the business world, within the government . . .

"I don't think [Antibalas] ever purport to be at the vanguard of change that's going to come over the United States. We're well known, but only a fraction of Americans listen to us. There's got to be country musicians, rap musicians, reggae musicians who are all putting these conversations forward in their own way, in their own words, to speak to different people."