Few Afropop stars dare use celebrity to criticize political leaders. Of those who have, none has inveighed with such gusto, or paid so dearly for it as Nigeria's maverick bandleader Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Born in the Yoruba enclave Abeokuta to a wealthy family steeped in colonialism, Fela rebelled...
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Few Afropop stars dare use celebrity to criticize political leaders. Of those who have, none has inveighed with such gusto, or paid so dearly for it as Nigeria's maverick bandleader Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Born in the Yoruba enclave Abeokuta to a wealthy family steeped in colonialism, Fela rebelled against his strict upbringing leaving school to study music in London during the late '50s. There, he acquired a taste for jazz. A stay in the US in the '60s nurtured Fela's radicalism, and he went home in 1970 determined to speak out for West Africa's oppressed urban poor. Fela led his sprawling, 30-plus-piece afrobeat band---first called Africa 70, and later Egypt 80---through scathing broadsides against his government, international business and corrupt leaders all over. Early songs like "Zombie," a swipe at Nigerian Army soldiers, and "International Thief Thief" horrified authorities and earned Fela harsh retribution. In 1977, during the army's second armed march on Fela's communal compound, 1,000 soldiers burned buildings and equipment, brutalized Fela's followers and musicians and threw his 84-year-old mother from a window, hastening her death. Fela's subsequent marriage to 27 women, those loyal enough to stay with him, fortified his regal image, though he later divorced them following his 18-month prison term on trumped-up currency charges. On stage, Fela lead his band through lengthy African funk epistles. While drummers and guitarists etched the groove, Fela preached in pidgin English, building the feeling with a keyboard break or a blast on his tenor sax. When the song crested, a row of women danced and sang and the band's massive cluster of horns blared out with indignation. The disciplined barrage of Fela's band invited comparisons with James Brown, to which Fela's responded, "I don't object to what people hear. But my music is African music." Fela died from complications of AIDS in 1997, but his son Femi now carries on the afrobeat tradition with his popular 17-piece group, Positive Force.
Contributed by: Banning Eyre (courtesy Afropop Worldwide - afropop.org)
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