BLACK HISTORY SPOTLIGHT: FELA KUTI

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Fela Kuti (1938-1997) was Africa’s most famous musician and Nigeria’s foremost political dissident. The video above is part one of a documentary filled with the words and music of Fela. What better way to learn about him than hearing from the man himself?

Fela coined and invented Afrobeat, a combination of Yoruba music, jazz, Highlife, and funk rhythms, fused with African percussion and vocal styles.

His father, Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, was a pastor and talented pianist, and his mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, was active in the anti-colonial, anti-military Nigerian home rule movement. At an early age, Fela experienced both music and politics. His parents wanted him to become a doctor and sent him to study in London, thinking he was working toward a medical education. Fela, however, had enrolled at Trinity College’s school of music and formed his first band, Koola Lobitos, in 1961.

Fela returned to Nigeria in 1963 and formed another version of Koola Lobitos that was influenced by Sierra Leonian bandleader Geraldo Pino. Fela called the music style Afrobeat as a critique of African performers whom he felt had turned their backs on their African musical roots in order to emulate American pop music trends.

In 1969, Fela brought Koola Lobitos to Los Angeles to record and tour. It was during this time that he was introduced to the work of Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver, the Black Panthers and other supporters of black nationalism and Afrocentrism. He was impressed and decided to make some changes. The name of the band became Nigeria 70 and the music became more politically explicit and critical of the oppression of the powerless. He also formed the Kalakuta Republic, a commune, a recording studio and a home for many connected to the band which he later declared independent from the Nigerian state.

Fela became a cultural rebel, the voice of Nigeria’s have-nots. The military junta hounded, jailed, harassed and nearly killed him in order to silence him. In 1977, Nigerian soldiers attacked his Kalakuta compound. Fela suffered a fractured skull and other broken bones. His 82-year-old mother was thrown from an upstairs window. The soldiers set the compound afire and prevented fire fighters from putting out the blaze. All of Fela’s master tapes and musical instruments were destroyed. To mark the anniversary of the Kalakuta attack, Fela married twenty-seven women, many of whom were his dancers, composers and singers. He later adopted a rotation system to keep only twelve simultaneous wives.

Fela established his own political party, Movement of the People (MOP) in 1979, and renamed his band Egypt 80. Until 1983, Nigeria was under civilian rule, which was a peaceful period for Fela until military rule returned in 1983. The following year, Fela was sentenced to ten years in prison on charges of currency smuggling, but with the help of Amnesty International, he was freed a year later.

During the late ’80s, Fela recorded attacks against Nigeria’s corrupt government, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. During the ’90s, Fela was relatively quiet, with many suggesting that he was too ill. On August 3, 1997, Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, a prominent AIDS activist and former Minister of Health, announced his younger brother’s death a day earlier from Kaposi’s sarcoma brought on by AIDS. More than a million people attended Fela’s funeral at the site of the old Kalakuta compound.