Nigeria's Afrobeat legend: what a Fela.

Fela Kuti

Anthology 1

2 CD + DVD

Wrasse Records

WRASS199

A composer, saxophonist, keyboard player, choreographer, activist, spiritualist, philosopher and perhaps the greatest African pop musician of the modern era, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti hardly requires an introduction yet he defies the usual categorisation--he is simply a legend.

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Fela is believed to have released 77 albums during a lifetime career devoted to music and social activism, and the two CD discs in this anthology cover a couple of distinct periods--the very early years, from 1964 up to the 1969 Los Angeles sessions, and Fela Kuti with Africa 70.

The life story of this extraordinary musician is reasonably well known. Born in 1938 to a well-to-do and highly respected Yoruba family in Nigeria--his parents expected Fela and his siblings to take full advantage of their upper-middle class background and pursue conventional professions such as law or medicine. But Fela had other ideas. Already a trumpet player, shortly after his father died, in 1958, he travelled to London.

Fela's mother, Funmilayo, might have thought he was safely studying at a university to become a lawyer or a doctor, but he had enrolled at the College of Music. It was in London that he formed his first band, the Koolah Lobitos, a West African Highlife ensemble.

It was also in London, in 1961, that Fela married his first wife Remi, with whom he had a son Femi (himself a Grammy award musician who, although very much his own man, has taken on his late father's mantle); and a daughter, Yeni, who with Remi, continues to run the New African Shrine--the nightclub that Fela established in Lagos.

Returning from London to Lagos, Fela worked as a radio producer for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation and continued the Koola Lobitos tradition, reforming the band he started in London.

Afrobeat--born in the USA

The radio work was never going to hold Fela's restless spirit, and the opportunity for Koolah Lobitos to tour the USA in 1969 was eagerly seized upon.

It was to be a defining period in Fela's life although after three months in the US, Fela's American dream began to fade. "We weren't IN the America we'd dreamt of," Fela recalled. "No, man. We were IN trouble! No gigs! No bread! Nothing!" The band ended up in Los Angeles in August, 1969. Many of the band members had to take up menial jobs just to eat.

It was at a concert at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles that Fela was to meet Sandra Smith, a young Los Angeles anthropology student. She was a member of the Black Panther movement and a radical pan-Africanist, and she not only became Fela's lover, and to some extent his mentor, she also opened Fela's eyes to radical Black Consciousness, introducing him to the writings of Eldridge Cleaver, Malcom X and all things pan-African.

Smith helped Fela secure a regular spot at the Citadel de Haiti nightclub. Playing there for nearly six months, six nights a week, "anyone who was anyone in LA came to see Fela", she recalled. "It was all word of mouth." Fela started reading the books that Smith was enthusing about and discovering his African roots: "She talked to me about politics, history, about Africa," Fela was to later remember. "She taught me what she knew and what she knew was enough for me to start on ... nothing about my life is complete without her."

Back to Africa

Finally, the US authorities caught up with the visa-less Fela and his band and he were returned to Nigeria. Back in Lagos he changed the band's name to the Nigeria 70, later changing it to Africa 70. He wrote his first hit record, the satirical J'eun Koku--Chop 'n Quench (i.e. 'eat and drink').

He also started holding dance concerts at a venue called the Afro-Spot (later to become the African Shrine).

The 1970s and 1980s were punctuated by Fela's acerbic musical commentary on the country's venal military leadership. These later songs and his outspoken criticisms led to raids on his communal home (the self-styled Kalekuta Republic) and frequent beatings and jailings. It also led to some of the greatest music to come out of Africa, just a foretaste of which is contained in these historic recordings. Forthcoming anthologies will cover later work up to his death in 1997.

This anthology's accompanying booklet contains a foreword by his first daughter, Yeni Kuti, who says: "For generations to come, Fela will be a source of inspiration to millions of people around the world."

The accompanying DVD has a comprehensive documentary containing lengthy interviews and previously unseen footage of a 1984 concert that explains who Fela was, and something of his great legacy.