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Even in death, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, who, alongside Bob Marley and James Brown, electrified the world with explicitly anti-establishment and unapologetically ghetto-inspired black music, is still making waves. A tribute to the fallen revolutionary hero on the 12th anniversary of his death:-
What do Shawn ‘Jay Z’ Carter and Will Smith have in common with Nigerian Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti?
The two American stars were the producers of the 2009 Broadway flick Fela!, a musical on the story of the late Nigerian artiste which won three Tonys at the top theatre awards in the US this year.
He was known by various names: ‘Black President’, ‘Omo Iya Aje’ (Son of a Powerful Woman), ‘Baba’ (Father) and ‘Abami Eda’ (Strange One or Spirit Being) — he was given the latter name after release from jail in 1986 after serving his term for one of his many politically-motivated charges.
This August marks the 12th anniversary of the death of the musician, activist, rebel, and political maverick, but it is impossible to make a mention of Fela without highlighting the controversial aspects of the man’s character.
Musical accomplishments
Obituaries written in newspapers and magazines, ranging from The New York Times to Time Magazine and Rolling Stone, saluted his musical accomplishments through chronicles of his radical politics and frequent run-ins with the Nigerian authorities.
Invariably, all writers made mention of Fela’s marriage to 27 wives, and his habit of performing, saxophone across the shoulder, clad only in his underwear.
His songs were political attacks aimed at the successive military governments in Nigeria, and what he viewed as an oppressive world order.
Sorrow, Tears and Blood, Colonial Mentality, International Thief Thief (ITT) and Vagabonds In Power were all potent commentaries that riled the authorities in Lagos.
“If I were a respectable professor at a university saying these things, that would be something different,” Fela said. “But to them, I am just a musician, a crazy artiste saying crazy things.”
In 1977, hundreds of soldiers raided Fela’s communal compound, The Kalakuta Republic, razed it to the ground and threw his 77-year-old mother from a window, causing her injuries from which she later died.
In a show of defiance, Fela delivered his mother’s body in a coffin to the residence of military leader Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo and released the song Coffin For Head Of State, in which he agonised:
Them burn many houses
Them burn my house too
Them kill my mama
Marrying 27 wives
It was after this brutal attack that Fela married 27 of his back-up singers and dancers at a mass wedding ceremony “because they could not find employment since his studio had been burnt down by the soldiers”.
In Nigeria, this was seen as an attack on the hypocrisy of prominent Nigerians who posed as modern and monogamous, yet were known to keep mistresses. Elsewhere in the world, it held up as another example of Fela’s reactionary sexual politics as heard in songs like Lady, in which he extols the virtue of a market woman while mocking the ‘African lady’.
Fela Kuti’s music was as much for education as it was for dancing and entertainment. He sought to counter the commercialism that limited a song to a three-minute duration, saying this was insufficient for satisfying dancing or effective listening.
“I am writing African classical music,” he would say, “Don’t mess with Tchaikovsky.”
He created lengthy and complex songs running to at least 10 minutes, complete with instrumental solos, intricate percussions and horn arrangements.
Ethnomusicologist Michael E Veal describes Fela as “combining the dancing agility of James Brown, the mystical inclinations of Sun Ra, the polemics of Malcolm X and the harsh insightful satire of Richard Pryor”.
In the 1970s, Fela developed an innovative music genre called ‘Afrobeat’, a fusion of West African highlife, jazz, funk and traditional African music.
His interaction with Western music goes back to his student days at London’s Trinity College of Music (at one point he shared an apartment with his cousin, Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka).
It was here that Fela formed his first band, Koola Lobitos, entertaining Nigerian and Caribbean students in England. Fela belonged to a generation of musicians, including Miriam Makeba, Manu Dibango, Hugh Masekela, Franco, Tabu Ley ‘Rochereau’ and Abdullah Ibrahim, who gained international success due to their distinct African music styles.
It was Miriam Makeba, already a household name with Pata Pata, who gave Fela business contacts during his band’s first trip to the States in 1969.
Love life
While in the US, he met and fell in love with Sandra Smith Isadore, a former member of the African American revolutionary group, The Black Panthers. Sandra introduced Fela to the ideas of civil rights icons like Martin Luther King, Elijah Mohammed and Malcolm X. The latter made the biggest impression on Fela: “I wanted to be like Malcolm X,” he would later admit.
Meanwhile, the jazz movement in America changed Fela’s musical direction and, for the first time, he realised he needed to connect to his African roots. He wrote what is regarded as his first Afrobeat song, My Lady’s Frustrations, a tribute to Sandra for the strain his career was putting on their relationship.
Coming back from America in 1970, Fela reflected on his experiences: “I had realised I should not try to impress foreigners…. When my people accept me, then foreigners will see the need to accept me.”
He built a fence around his house and declared it an independent state called The Kalakuta Republic, and opened a nightclub, the Shrine. It was also during this time that he dropped his ‘slave name’ Ransome and became ‘Anikulapo’ (He Who Carries Death in his Pouch).
Fela’s concerns
He addressed issues important to the Nigerian underclass, political exploitation and disenfranchisement, and soon became satirical and sarcastic towards those in power, condemning both military and civilian regimes for mismanagement, incompetence, theft and marginalisation of the poor.
Zombie was the most popular and impacting record that Fela and Africa 70 would record. It’s a humorous song as he barks out commands to soldiers like: Attention!
Double up!
Fall in!
Fall out!
Fall down!
Get ready!
As the song caught on, Nigerians would walk with hands infront, proclaiming Zombie whenever they saw soldiers.
This was too much for the authorities to take and events shortly after resulted in the infamous raid on The Kalakuta Republic.
Almost from the moment he came back to Nigeria until his death, Fela was hounded, jailed, harassed and nearly killed during the military attack on his Kalakuta compound.
Defiant, he formed his own political party, Movement of the People, and presented himself as a presidential candidate in the 1979 elections that would return Nigeria to civilian rule. His candidature was rejected.
During his lifetime, Fela never performed songs he had recorded and the current line up of the band has taken to performing many of those classics for the first time under the younger Kuti.
What others say
Author Carlos Moore sets Fela alongside James Brown and Bob Marley “as the only 20th century musicians to have electrified the world with explicitly anti-establishment and unapologetically ghetto-inspired black music.”
Fela resided in Nigeria regardless of personal or professional consequences, leaving only for the occasional foreign concert or recording session.
During his funeral in 1997, over one million people filed past his casket chanting, “Fela will live forever!”True to character, Fela was buried with a marijuana joint in his mouth.
Even in death, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, who, alongside Bob Marley and James Brown, electrified the world with explicitly anti-establishment and unapologetically ghetto-inspired black music, is still making waves. A tribute to the fallen revolutionary hero on the 12th anniversary of his death:-
What do Shawn ‘Jay Z’ Carter and Will Smith have in common with Nigerian Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti?
The two American stars were the producers of the 2009 Broadway flick Fela!, a musical on the story of the late Nigerian artiste which won three Tonys at the top theatre awards in the US this year.
He was known by various names: ‘Black President’, ‘Omo Iya Aje’ (Son of a Powerful Woman), ‘Baba’ (Father) and ‘Abami Eda’ (Strange One or Spirit Being) — he was given the latter name after release from jail in 1986 after serving his term for one of his many politically-motivated charges.
This August marks the 12th anniversary of the death of the musician, activist, rebel, and political maverick, but it is impossible to make a mention of Fela without highlighting the controversial aspects of the man’s character.
Musical accomplishments
Obituaries written in newspapers and magazines, ranging from The New York Times to Time Magazine and Rolling Stone, saluted his musical accomplishments through chronicles of his radical politics and frequent run-ins with the Nigerian authorities.
Invariably, all writers made mention of Fela’s marriage to 27 wives, and his habit of performing, saxophone across the shoulder, clad only in his underwear.
His songs were political attacks aimed at the successive military governments in Nigeria, and what he viewed as an oppressive world order.
Sorrow, Tears and Blood, Colonial Mentality, International Thief Thief (ITT) and Vagabonds In Power were all potent commentaries that riled the authorities in Lagos.
“If I were a respectable professor at a university saying these things, that would be something different,” Fela said. “But to them, I am just a musician, a crazy artiste saying crazy things.”
In 1977, hundreds of soldiers raided Fela’s communal compound, The Kalakuta Republic, razed it to the ground and threw his 77-year-old mother from a window, causing her injuries from which she later died.
In a show of defiance, Fela delivered his mother’s body in a coffin to the residence of military leader Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo and released the song Coffin For Head Of State, in which he agonised:
Them burn many houses
Them burn my house too
Them kill my mama
Marrying 27 wives
It was after this brutal attack that Fela married 27 of his back-up singers and dancers at a mass wedding ceremony “because they could not find employment since his studio had been burnt down by the soldiers”.
In Nigeria, this was seen as an attack on the hypocrisy of prominent Nigerians who posed as modern and monogamous, yet were known to keep mistresses. Elsewhere in the world, it held up as another example of Fela’s reactionary sexual politics as heard in songs like Lady, in which he extols the virtue of a market woman while mocking the ‘African lady’.
Fela Kuti’s music was as much for education as it was for dancing and entertainment. He sought to counter the commercialism that limited a song to a three-minute duration, saying this was insufficient for satisfying dancing or effective listening.
“I am writing African classical music,” he would say, “Don’t mess with Tchaikovsky.”
He created lengthy and complex songs running to at least 10 minutes, complete with instrumental solos, intricate percussions and horn arrangements.
Ethnomusicologist Michael E Veal describes Fela as “combining the dancing agility of James Brown, the mystical inclinations of Sun Ra, the polemics of Malcolm X and the harsh insightful satire of Richard Pryor”.
In the 1970s, Fela developed an innovative music genre called ‘Afrobeat’, a fusion of West African highlife, jazz, funk and traditional African music.
His interaction with Western music goes back to his student days at London’s Trinity College of Music (at one point he shared an apartment with his cousin, Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka).
It was here that Fela formed his first band, Koola Lobitos, entertaining Nigerian and Caribbean students in England. Fela belonged to a generation of musicians, including Miriam Makeba, Manu Dibango, Hugh Masekela, Franco, Tabu Ley ‘Rochereau’ and Abdullah Ibrahim, who gained international success due to their distinct African music styles.
It was Miriam Makeba, already a household name with Pata Pata, who gave Fela business contacts during his band’s first trip to the States in 1969.
Love life
While in the US, he met and fell in love with Sandra Smith Isadore, a former member of the African American revolutionary group, The Black Panthers. Sandra introduced Fela to the ideas of civil rights icons like Martin Luther King, Elijah Mohammed and Malcolm X. The latter made the biggest impression on Fela: “I wanted to be like Malcolm X,” he would later admit.
Meanwhile, the jazz movement in America changed Fela’s musical direction and, for the first time, he realised he needed to connect to his African roots. He wrote what is regarded as his first Afrobeat song, My Lady’s Frustrations, a tribute to Sandra for the strain his career was putting on their relationship.
Coming back from America in 1970, Fela reflected on his experiences: “I had realised I should not try to impress foreigners…. When my people accept me, then foreigners will see the need to accept me.”
He built a fence around his house and declared it an independent state called The Kalakuta Republic, and opened a nightclub, the Shrine. It was also during this time that he dropped his ‘slave name’ Ransome and became ‘Anikulapo’ (He Who Carries Death in his Pouch).
Fela’s concerns
He addressed issues important to the Nigerian underclass, political exploitation and disenfranchisement, and soon became satirical and sarcastic towards those in power, condemning both military and civilian regimes for mismanagement, incompetence, theft and marginalisation of the poor.
Zombie was the most popular and impacting record that Fela and Africa 70 would record. It’s a humorous song as he barks out commands to soldiers like: Attention!
Double up!
Fall in!
Fall out!
Fall down!
Get ready!
As the song caught on, Nigerians would walk with hands infront, proclaiming Zombie whenever they saw soldiers.
This was too much for the authorities to take and events shortly after resulted in the infamous raid on The Kalakuta Republic.
Almost from the moment he came back to Nigeria until his death, Fela was hounded, jailed, harassed and nearly killed during the military attack on his Kalakuta compound.
Defiant, he formed his own political party, Movement of the People, and presented himself as a presidential candidate in the 1979 elections that would return Nigeria to civilian rule. His candidature was rejected.
During his lifetime, Fela never performed songs he had recorded and the current line up of the band has taken to performing many of those classics for the first time under the younger Kuti.
What others say
Author Carlos Moore sets Fela alongside James Brown and Bob Marley “as the only 20th century musicians to have electrified the world with explicitly anti-establishment and unapologetically ghetto-inspired black music.”
Fela resided in Nigeria regardless of personal or professional consequences, leaving only for the occasional foreign concert or recording session.
During his funeral in 1997, over one million people filed past his casket chanting, “Fela will live forever!”True to character, Fela was buried with a marijuana joint in his mouth.
