UCLA’s Fowler Museum will be in tune with African culture this weekend as the museum prepares to bid farewell to one of its African art exhibits with a new type of celebration – a Fela-bration inspired by Nigerian musician Fela Kuti.

On Saturday, the Fowler will be teaming up with club Afro Funké to present “Fela-bration!” the summer sunset concert and closing event for the exhibition “Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley,” which leaves UCLA for an international tour on Sunday.

The event is also a salute to Kuti himself, who is thought of as an important figure in the afrobeat genre.

Rocky Dawuni, Afro Funké creator and host of the Fela-bration, said that the celebration will also give people a chance to embrace Africa and African culture.

“For me, anything that has to do with Africa, whether it’s art or music, can be part of supporting the culture,” Dawuni said. “This is a celebration of the legacy of Fela in connection to the exhibit.”

The Fela-bration will consist of live music by Najite Agindotan, an original member of Fela Kuti’s band Egypt ’80, face painting by Wawi Amasha, mask-making for families and sets by DJs Jeremy Sole and Glenn Red. Blues singer and guitarist Sunny War, as well as afro-jazz group Jaman Laws & Friends, will also perform.

Fela Kuti’s musical style is called afrobeat, which is a blend of jazz, funk, rock and more traditional West African rhythms. Large bands are also characteristic of Fela’s music and afrobeat performances in general. However, the Fela-bration will also feature a variety of musical styles in addition to afrobeat.

Jaman Laws, son of jazz musician Ronnie Laws, said his jazz band will be playing a mixture of Afro-jazz and American jazz in the spirit of the event.

“Jazz music is so wide-ranged that it can go anywhere, so we try to get our hands on whatever we can grasp, understand or expand upon,” Laws said. “We’ll be performing some popular songs that people know, like Dizzy Gillespie’s ‘Night in Tunisia.’”

Fela-bration performer and blues guitarist Sunny War, who has dabbled in genres such as blues, folk and punk music, said her work is acoustic experimental music and also that, though her music differs from Fela’s, they still share a connection.

“He’s definitely a huge influence for world music,” War said. “He showed me that there’s no limit to what you can do. It’s okay if you write something that doesn’t really make sense or fit into a genre. It’s okay to be creative and just make your own genre.”

War said she plans to play her original music, traditional blues and possibly a selection from her newest material that she has yet to perform before an audience.

According to Dawuni, the celebration is also an opportunity to experience African culture in the context of a multicultural city like Los Angeles.

“We’re going to be celebrating within Fowler, which is a microcosm of the African community in Los Angeles, but at the same time our intention is to really project this whole thing worldwide,” Dawuni said. “I feel that people, in discovering Africa, regardless of race, discover a piece of themselves.”

Laws, who also plays the saxophone in Dawuni’s band, said he and his jazz band recognize the connections between their music and that of other parts of the world, including but not limited to Africa.

“It’s important to us because, as American artists, it’s good to look at what other countries are contributing to music, not just Western music,” Laws said.

Dawuni also noted that the Fela-bration will be an opportunity to shed light on what is going on in Africa in order to cultivate a more positive global perspective.

“As we move into the world and a globalized community in which we are all connected, I think that human connection can be attained by us making the effort to know more about each other,” Dawuni said. “As we draw closer, we get to realize how close, how similar and how one we are.”