Fela: From West Africa to West Broadway.Fela: From West Africa West Africa A region of western Africa between the Sahara Desert and the Gulf of Guinea. It was largely controlled by colonial powers until the 20th century. West African adj. & n. to West Broadway Edited by Trevor Schoonmaker Palgrave Macmillan, New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , 2003. x + 208 pp., 41 b/w + 11 color illustrations, map, notes, timeline, index. $59.95 cloth, $19.95 paper. Six years after his death, Fela Kuti Fela Anikulapo Kuti (born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, October 15 1938 - August 2 1997), or simply Fela, was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, pioneer of Afrobeat music, human rights activist, and political maverick. continues to draw attention. In Nigeria, across Africa, and around the world, fans and critics still celebrate and argue about his music, his politics, his perseverance, and his defiance. This book is part of the larger Fela Project, a multimedia production that also includes the publication Black President: The Art and Legacy of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (2003) and an exhibition titled "Black President" which opened at the New Museum of Contemporary Art This article is about New Museum of Contemporary Art. For other Museums named Museum of Contemporary Art, see Museum of Contemporary Art. The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. in July, 2003. The book is a compilation of essays, interviews, photographs, and cartoon illustrations that pay tribute to Fela's life. Editor Trevor Schoonmaker begins by remarking, "Mention the name Fela to someone who knew him and a passionate string of monikers and opinions will quickly follow. Prophet. Hero. Rock Star. Troublemaker. Trickster trickster, a mythic figure common among Native North Americans, South Americans, and Africans. Usually male but occasionally female or disguised in female form, he is notorious for exaggerated biological drives and well-endowed physique; partly divine, partly human, . Playboy. Rebel. Martyr. Visionary. Revolutionary. Baba ('father'). Chief Priest. Abami Eda ('the strange one') ... Black President, King of Afrobeat "(p. 1). An independent curator in New York, Schoonmaker is cofounder co·found tr.v. co·found·ed, co·found·ing, co·founds To establish or found in concert with another or others. co·found of a monthly Fela club night and director of the Fela Project. Most other contributors to the book knew Fela personally, and all have been deeply affected by his life and music. Through their essays, they reveal how they learned to better understand Fela, and how through Fela they have come to better understand themselves. Schoonmaker's introduction provides a brief overview of Fela's life. Following this introduction are twelve essays, several only a few pages in length. The essays might be divided into two broad categories: essays that are primarily descriptive and those that are more analytical. The former outweigh the latter. Several essays are reprints of earlier newspaper or journal articles. Knox Robinson provides a sense of what it is like to emerge into Fela's world: his commune the Kalakuta Republic Kalakuta Republic was the name musician and political activist Fela Kuti gave to the communal compound that housed his family, band members, and recording studio in Lagos, Nigeria. , modern-day Nigeria, and his music. Fela's friend and biographer Mabinuori Kayode Idowu (aka I.D.) describes his mother's confrontation with Fela about his influence on her son, Fela's clash with the Nigerian government during Festac '77, and Fela's controversial 1978 performance in Berlin. In two essays, Vivien Goldman Vivien Goldman is a British journalist, writer and musician. She was born in London, the child of two German-Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. She studied English and American literature at the University of Warwick. She began her career as a PR officer for Island Records. tells about Ghanaian magician Professor Hindu, Fela's friend and advisor, reviving a dead man in London and explores the eroticism Eroticism Aphrodite novel of Alexandrian manners by Pierre Louys. [Fr. Lit.: Benét, 783] Ars Amatoria Ovid’s treatise on lovemaking. [Rom. Lit. and meaning associated with Fela's dancers, his Queens. Ghariokwu Lemi describes his work as Fela's jacket artist, and John Collins presents the 1977 diary he kept while serving as "Inspector Reynolds" in Fela's biographical film Black President (damaged in the fire that destroyed Kalakuta and thus never released). Drawing upon his experiences growing up in Nigeria and as art editor and political cartoonist for the Lagos Daily Times, dele de·le n. A sign indicating that something is to be removed from printed or written matter. tr.v. de·led, de·le·ing, de·les 1. To remove, especially from printed or written matter; delete. 2. jegede uses his essay and cartoons to describe differing phases of Fela's musical development and influence in Nigeria. LaRay Denzer offers insight into the women who most impacted Fela's life: his mother, his first wife Remi, his African-American friend and lover Friend and Lover were an American folk-singing duo comprised of husband-and-wife team, Jim and Cathy Post. They are best known for their hit single "Reach Out of the Darkness", which made the U.S. Top Ten on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1968. Sandra Izsadore, and his Queens. Among the most engaging contributions is that of Nkiru Nzegwu, who explains how she and her schoolgirl friends were able to appreciate Fela's music while recognizing his "false conception (Med.) an abnormal conception in which a mole, or misshapen fleshy mass, is produced instead of a properly organized fetus. See also: False " (p. 141) of African women. Through a critical reading of songs such as "Lady," Nzegwu argues that Fela's model of the "African woman" reflects Western perspectives more than African traditions. Also more analytic are articles by Joseph Patel, Sola Olorunyomi, and Yomi Durotoye. Music critic Patel examines Fela's influence on hip hop, R&B, and Afro-house. He speaks about times when musicians have looked toward Fela and times when perhaps they should have. Olorunyomi takes readers into Fela's nightclub, the Shrine, and explores his performance as ritual. Finally, Durotoye draws upon Fela's lyrics to discuss phases in his "politics of resistance" (p. 179), from Fela's promotion of Black Pride in the early 1970s to his increasing opposition to the Nigerian government and to Christianity and Islam The historical interaction between Christianity and Islam, in the field of comparative religion, connects fundamental ideas in Christianity with similar ones in Islam. Islam and Christianity share their origins in the Abrahamic tradition though Christianity predates Islam by six in the 1970s-80s. Also included in the book are transcriptions of a 1983 interview with Fela by Barney Hoskyns and a 2002 interview with Fela's son Femi (also an internationally renowned musician) by Jerome Sandlarz. Fela responds to questions about racism, his spiritual beliefs, his musical influences, his wives, and Nigerian politics. Femi discusses his experiences as Fela's child, his perspectives on polygamy polygamy: see marriage. polygamy Marriage to more than one spouse at a time. Although the term may also refer to polyandry (marriage to more than one man), it is often used as a synonym for polygyny (marriage to more than one woman), which appears and pan-Africanism, and his efforts to carry on his father's legacy. In addition to a few photographs and cartoons included in the essays, the book features two sections of color and black-and-white photographs of Fela, his home, his performances, his family, and his funeral. The book concludes with two cartoon excerpts from the Nigerian Daily Times, a timeline of Fela's life, and a map of Nigeria. If there is a common theme in the book, it is that Fela's life and music should be more widely recognized and that his work and messages remain as relevant today as in the past. Listeners and artists can continue to gain from his music, people around the world still struggle with political oppression, and AIDS, the disease that killed him, is affecting more people than we can fathom. Some readers will appreciate that the book is an easy read, a result of the descriptive nature of so many of the essays, the casual tone in which most of the authors write, and the intriguing nature of the subject--Fela. Other readers may be frustrated that the essays do not provide a more critical reading of his life. Nevertheless, if only for the added attention it draws to Fela's music and for the personal insights it provides into his life, the book remains a valuable contribution to the growing body of literature on Fela in particular and African music more broadly. |
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