Icon: Fela Kuti
The incontestable king of Afrobeat, with a career that spanned over 30 years, Fela Anikulapo (née Ransome) Kuti’s prodigious musical output is overshadowed to the point of cliché by the stuff that’s made him such a mythical figure. A bramble in the claw of Nigeria’s ruling dictatorship; a total dickweed who might have outdone both Miles Davis and Pablo Picasso for total dickweediness; a cult leader with his own compound, the Kalakuta Republic, and a harem of 27 wives; and a ganja horticulturist extraordinaire, it’s easy to forget that Fela actually sang, wrote songs, played saxophone, led a band (in the ’70s, Africa 70; in the ’80s, Egypt 80), performed innumerable concerts and cut dozens upon dozens of albums.
But he did, and though even committed fans would hesitate to recommend everything Fela and his bands and disciples recorded, his peaks stand with those of his most obvious influence, James Brown, and the world of Funkadelic as the most body-rocking music of the ’70s. But while Brown’s music was the sound of a runner getting leaner and leaner in preparation for a marathon, Fela’s overstuffed songs jiggled like a dancing, galloping gourmet. And Fela’s jams certainly rival Clinton and Co.’s for length – as the decade wore on, Fela’s songs would stretch from the lip of the vinyl straight to the label in the center. (Often, one song would occupy both sides of a record; in the digital era, the halved tracks have been joined into uninterrupted wholes.) As for the political fire so central to his music, what the man himself said at the beginning of “Shuffering and Shmiling” says it all: “You Africans, please listen to me as Africans, and you non-Africans, please listen to me with open minds.” – Jess Harvell
Africa Man Original
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Consisting of early Nigerian 45's Fela re-recorded in London in 1971, Afrodesia remains one of his stronger early albums before his afrobeat apotheosis. One of the final Fela albums to be sung entirely in Yoruba, rather than pidgin English, it begins with "Alu Jon Joki," a Yoruban folk tale about a dog who sneaks his mother into heaven rather than consume her during a famine like all the other animals. It's embellished with psychedelic electric piano and an uncharacteristic male vocal chorus. "J'eun Ko Ko" (Eat and Die), an instrumental version of Fela's first hit record, and "Eko Ile" (Lagos Home), in which Fela asserts his allegiance to his hometown, hardly prepare listeners for "Je'Nwi Temi" (Don't Gag Me), in which Fela prophetically makes his future lifetime's worth of political defiance sound funky, sexy, and almost tragically inevitable. - Richard Gehr
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The rough and gritty tenor sax solo that kicks off "Gentleman," following a teasing vamp, marks Fela's first solo on the instrument, which he learned quickly after Igo Chico split Afrika 70 earlier in 1973. The song wraps a classic Afrika 70 arrangement around Fela's disquisition on the colonial mentality of Africans who cling to inappropriate European customs and clothing (as suggested by the terrifically non-PC cover collage of a monkey's head on a suited body). "Africa hot, I like am so," sings Fela scornfully. "I know what to wear but my friends don't know." Two jazzy eight-minute instrumentals provide killer filler. - Richard Gehr
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An attack on corrupt religions, "Shuffering and Shmiling" opens with a groove that shows Africa 70 at its most minimalist and percolating, with a needling, almost highlife guitar that stings and stabs as Fela rains contempt on "goddamn church[es]" and "goddamn mosque[s]." As the song builds, he savages the idea of living through hell to get to heaven, as his female chorus replies, "Amen!" "Shuffering and Shmiling" proves that Fela was unafraid to stick his finger in the eye of even the most sacred subjects. - Jess Harvell
The Black President
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Once you get past the first six minutes' of introductory blab, this album captures a vibrant Berlin Jazz Festival headline slot that turned out to be the final performance by Fela's classic Afrika 70 lineup. The group broke up when informed that Fela was going to use the gig's profits to finance an aborted presidential campaign. Perhaps encouraged by the live cameras broadcasting to other European countries and back home, Fela broke out a big and ballsy new work characterizing Nigeria's rulers as "vagabonds in power" lacking sympathy for the nation's lower social strata. It's also noteworthy for the midsong interplay between guitars, percussion, and voices, a remarkable afrofunk recipe that would never be repeated quite as deftly. - Richard Gehr
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Undoubtedly the darkest of Fela's records, "Coffin for Head of State" was a response to the death of Fela's mother from injuries she took from a fall from a window during the 1977 army raid on Kalakuta. Unlike the fiery "Kalakuta Show," his previous response to a raid on the compound he had declared an independent state, "Coffin" drags itself through its duration like a funeral march; Fela actually delivered his mother's coffin to the steps of Nigerian president Obasanjo himself. Gone are the slyness of "Zombie" and "Expensive Shit"; in their place is the anguish of a bereaved son. This is the most emotionally naked record Fela would ever make. - Jess Harvell
Band on the Run
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Fela conflates his righteous indignation over being stiffed by Decca Records for back royalties with international corporate evil on this epic 1981 album reflecting the relatively tighter and more orchestral, albeit somewhat more formulaic, tendencies of his Afrika 80 band. Fela has by now perfected a pedagogy you can dance to on his latest in a series of scatalogically themed recordings that includes "Expensive Shit" and "You Gimme Shit I Give You Shit." "Africa man, we no dey carry shit," he chants before going on to describe how Europeans placed Nigerian "men of low mental power" (such as Decca's chief and a former president) in symbolic positions of authority. The result? "Dem come to teach us to carry shit." - Richard Gehr
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Once you get past the first six minutes' of introductory blab, this album captures a vibrant Berlin Jazz Festival headline slot that turned out to be the final performance by Fela's classic Afrika 70 lineup. The group broke up when informed that Fela was going to use the gig's profits to finance an aborted presidential campaign. Perhaps encouraged by the live cameras broadcasting to other European countries and back home, Fela broke out a big and ballsy new work characterizing Nigeria's rulers as "vagabonds in power" lacking sympathy for the nation's lower social strata. It's also noteworthy for the midsong interplay between guitars, percussion, and voices, a remarkable afrofunk recipe that would never be repeated quite as deftly.
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Undoubtedly the darkest of Fela's records, "Coffin for Head of State" was a response to the death of Fela's mother from injuries she took from a fall from a window during the 1977 army raid on Kalakuta. Unlike the fiery "Kalakuta Show," his previous response to a raid on the compound he had declared an independent state, "Coffin" drags itself through its duration like a funeral march; Fela actually delivered his mother's coffin to the steps of Nigerian president Obasanjo himself. Gone are the slyness of "Zombie" and "Expensive Shit"; in their place is the anguish of a bereaved son. This is the most emotionally naked record Fela would ever make.
Afrika 80 Goes International
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By 1989, Fela had codified his funk-highlife didacticism into a multilayered maximalist sort of neo-griot musical theater that anticipated Bill T. Jones's Broadway adaptation of his life story. "ODOO (Don Overtake Don Don)" delivers a breezy percussion jam, vocal chorus, and snazzy jazz-guitar solo before Fela gets down to serious business. He condemns Africa's military kleptocracies, naming them one by one until revealing their true moniker: "soldier come, soldier go." Having been warned not to record the song by a Nigerian government official, Fela took advantage of this momentous session to speak funk to power by reprising some of his greatest hits, including "Zombie," "Mr. Follow-Follow," and "Unknown Soldier." - Richard Gehr
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By 1989, Fela had codified his funk-highlife didacticism into a multilayered maximalist sort of neo-griot musical theater that anticipated Bill T. Jones's Broadway adaptation of his life story. "ODOO (Don Overtake Don Don)" delivers a breezy percussion jam, vocal chorus, and snazzy jazz-guitar solo before Fela gets down to serious business. He condemns Africa's military kleptocracies, naming them one by one until revealing their true moniker: "soldier come, soldier go." Having been warned not to record the song by a Nigerian government official, Fela took advantage of this momentous session to speak funk to power by reprising some of his greatest hits, including "Zombie," "Mr. Follow-Follow," and "Unknown Soldier."
