Real Name:
Fela Olusegun Anikulapo-Kuti
Music Genre:
Afrobeat
Record Label:
Knitting Factory Records
Date of birth:
15-10-1938 to 02-08-1997
Age:
86
Nationality:
NIGERIA
Fela Kuti
- Background
- Break
- Did you know?
It's almost impossible to overstate the impact and importance of Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Anikulapo-Kuti (or just Fela as he's more commonly known) to the global musical village: producer, arranger, musician, political radical, outlaw. He was all that, as well as showman par excellence, inventor of Afro-beat, an unredeemable sexist, and a moody megalomaniac. His death on August 2, 1997 of complications from AIDS deeply affected musicians and fans internationally, as a musical and sociopolitical voice on a par with Bob Marley was silenced. A press release from the United Democratic Front of Nigeria on the occasion of Fela's death noted: "Those who knew you well were insistent that you could never compromise with the evil you had fought all your life. Even though made weak by time and fate, you remained strong in will and never abandoned your goal of a free, democratic, socialist Africa." This is as succinct a summation of Fela's political agenda as one is likely to find.
Born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, north of Lagos in 1938, Fela's family was firmly middle class as well as politically active. His father was a pastor (and talented pianist), his mother active in the anti-colonial, anti-military, Nigerian home rule movement. So at an early age, Fela experienced politics and music in a seamless combination. His parents, however, were less interested in his becoming a musician and more interested in his becoming a doctor, so they packed him off to London in 1958 for what they assumed would be a medical education; instead, Fela registered at Trinity College's school of music. Tired of studying European composers, Fela formed his first band, Koola Lobitos, in 1961, and quickly became a fixture on the London club scene. He returned to Nigeria in 1963 and started another version of Koola Lobitos that was more influenced by the James Brown-style singing of Geraldo Pina from Sierra Leone. Combining this with elements of traditional high life and jazz, Fela dubbed this intensely rhythmic hybrid "Afro-beat," partly as critique of African performers whom he felt had turned their backs on their African musical roots in order to emulate current American pop music trends.
In 1969, Fela brought Koola Lobitos to Los Angeles to tour and record. They toured America for about eight months using Los Angeles as a home base. It was while in L.A. that Fela hooked up with a friend, Sandra Isidore, who introduced him to the writings and politics of Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver (and by extension the Black Panthers), and other proponents of Black nationalism and Afrocentrism. Impressed at what he read, Fela was politically revivified and decided that some changes were in order: first, the name of the band, as Koola Lobitos became Nigeria 70; second, the music would become more politically explicit and critical of the oppression of the powerless worldwide. After a disagreement with an unscrupulous promoter who turned them in to the Immigration and Naturalization Services, Fela and band were charged with working without work permits. Realizing that time was short before they were sent back to Nigeria, they were able to scrape together some money to record some new songs in L.A. What came to be known as the '69 Los Angeles Sessions were remarkable, an indication of a maturing sound and of the raucous, propulsive music that was to mark Fela's career. Afrobeat's combination of blaring horn sections, antiphonal vocals, Fela's quasi-rapping pidgin English, and percolating guitars, all wrapped up in a smoldering groove (in the early days driven by the band's brilliant drummer Tony Allen) that could last nearly an hour, was an intoxicating sound. Once hooked, it was impossible to get enough.
Upon returning to Nigeria, Fela founded a communal compound-c*m-recording studio and rehearsal space he called the Kalakuta Republic, and a nightclub, the Shrine. It was during this time that he dropped his given middle name of "Ransome" which he said was a slave name, and took the name "Anikulapo" (meaning "he who carries death in his pouch") . Playing constantly and recording at a ferocious pace, Fela and band (who were now called Africa 70) became huge stars in West Africa. His biggest fan base, however, was Nigeria's poor. Because his music addressed issues important to the Nigerian underclass (specifically a military government that profited from political exploitation and disenfranchisement), Fela was more than a simply a pop star; like Bob Marley in Jamaica, he was the voice of Nigeria's have-nots, a cultural rebel. This was something Nigeria's military junta tried to nip in the bud, and from almost the moment he came back to Nigeria up until his death, Fela was hounded, jailed, harassed, and nearly killed by a government determined to silence him. In one of the most egregious acts of violence committed against him, 1,000 Nigerian soldiers attacked his Kalakuta compound in 1977 (the second government-sanctioned attack). Fela suffered a fractured skull as well as other broken bones; his 82-year old mother was thrown from an upstairs window, inflicting injuries that would later prove fatal. The soldiers set fire to the compound and prevented fire fighters from reaching the area. Fela's recording studio, all his master tapes and musical instruments were destroyed.
After the Kalakuta tragedy, Fela briefly lived in exile in Ghana, returning to Nigeria in 1978. In 1979 he formed his own political party, MOP (Movement of the People), and at the start of the new decade renamed his band Egypt 80. From 1980-1983, Nigeria was under civilian rule, and it was a relatively peaceful period for Fela, who recorded and toured non-stop. Military rule returned in 1983, and in 1984 Fela was sentenced to ten years in prison on charges of currency smuggling. With help from Amnesty International, he was freed in 1985.
As the '80s ended, Fela recorded blistering attacks against Nigeria's corrupt military government, as well as broadsides aimed at Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan (most abrasively on the album Beasts of No Nation). Never what you would call progressive when it came to relationships with women or patriarchy in general (the fact was that he was sexist in the extreme, which is ironic when you consider that his mother was one of Nigeria's early feminists), he was coming around to the struggles faced by African women, but only just barely. Stylistically speaking, Fela's music didn't change much during this time, and much of what he recorded, while good, was not as blistering as some of the amazing music he made in the '70s. Still, when a Fela record appeared, it was always worth a listen. He was unusually quiet in the '90s, which may have had something to do with how ill he was; very little new music appeared, but in as great a series of reissues as the planet has ever seen, the London-based Stern's Africa label re-released some of his long unavailable records (including The '69 Los Angeles Sessions), and the seminal works of this remarkable musician were again filling up CD bins. He never broke big in the U.S. market, and it's hard to imagine him having the same kind of posthumous profile that Marley does, but Fela's 50-something releases offer up plenty of remarkable music, and a musical legacy that lives on in the person of his talented son Femi. Around the turn of the millennium, Universal began remastering and reissuing a goodly portion of Fela's many recordings, finally making some of his most important work widely available to American listeners.
Did you know Fela once lived in exile at Ghana where he embarked on creating a Nigerian political party called MOP?
Did you know Fela went to London to study medicine but switched to music on arriving to London?
Did you know Fela's 69' Session album recording was motivated by the fact that immigration services were after him and his band for working in the United States without a work visa?
Discography
-
The '69 L.A. Sessions
Released in 1970
Produced by Stern's Music | MCA | Wrasse Records
-
London Scene
Released in 1971
Produced by Knitting Factory | EMI
-
Live With Ginger Baker
Released in 1971
Produced by Regal Zonophone | Signpost | Pathe Marconi | Knitting Factory
-
Open and Close
Released in 1971
Produced by EMI
-
Why Black Man Dey Suffer
Released in 1971
Produced by Decca Afrodisia
-
Question Jam Answer
Released in 1972
Produced by EMI | Pathe Marconi
-
Afrodisiac
Released in 1973
Produced by Regal Zonophone | EMI | Pathe Marconi
-
Gentleman
Released in 1973
Produced by EMI | Creole | Pathe Marconi
-
Alagbon Close
Released in 1974
Produced by Jofabro | Editions Makossa | Pathe Marconi
-
Confusion
Released in 1975
Produced by EMI | Pathe Marconi
-
Everything Scatter
Released in 1975
Produced by Coconut | Knitting Factory | Creole | Phillips
-
Excuse O
Released in 1975
Produced by Coconut | Knitting Factory
-
Expensive Shit
Released in 1975
Produced by Soundwork Shop | Knitting Factory
-
He Miss Road
Released in 1975
Produced by EMI | Knitting Factory
-
Monkey Banana
Released in 1975
Produced by Coconut | Knitting Factory
-
Noise For Vendor Mouth
Released in 1975
Produced by Afrobeat | Knitting Factory
-
Ikoyi Blindness
Released in 1976
Produced by Africa Music | Knitting Factory
-
J.J.D. (live)
Released in 1976
Produced by Decca Afrodisia | Knitting Factory
-
Kalakuta Show
Released in 1976
Produced by Editions Makossa | EMI | Creole | Pathe Marconi | Knitting Factory
-
Na Poi
Released in 1976
Produced by EMI | Knitting Factory
-
Opposite People
Released in 1976
Produced by Decca Afrodisia | Knitting Factory
-
Upside Down
Released in 1976
Produced by Decca Afrodisia | London Records | Celluloid CELL
-
Yellow Fever
Released in 1976
Produced by Decca Afrodisia
-
Fear Not For Man
Released in 1977
Produced by Decca Afrodisia
-
No Agreement
Released in 1977
Produced by Barclay | Celluloid CELL | Decca Afrodisia
-
Shuffering & Shmiling
Released in 1977
Produced by EMI
-
Stalemate
Released in 1977
Produced by Decca Afrodisia
-
Zombie
Released in 1977
Produced by Coconut | Creole
-
Music Of Many Colors
Released in 1979
Produced by Phonodisk | Celluloid CELL
-
I.T.T.
Released in 1980
Produced by Kalakuta
-
Original Suffer Head
Released in 1981
Produced by Lagos International | Arista
-
Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense
Released in 1986
Produced by Polygram
-
Underground System
Released in 1990
Produced by Stern's Music | Kalakuta
-
Beasts of No Nation
Released in 1989
Produced by Kalakuta
References
-
http://www.fela.net/bio/
biochem.chem.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~endo/EAFela.html
Rovi Media
Singles
-
1972
Title Album Shakara (Oloje) Shakara -
1977
Title Album Zombie Zombie