Pubdate: Sat, 02 Aug 2003
Source: Vanguard (Nigeria)
Copyright: 2003 Vanguard.
Contact:  http://www.vanguardngr.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2890
Author: Ogbonna Amadi

FELA: LIFE AND TIMES

Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was one of the brightest stars of the Nigerian and 
international music scene in the 1970s and 1980s, controversial for his 
love for women, marijuana,and dressing only in his underpants, Fela's 
influence on contemporary music cannot be over-estimated. A true original, 
no other artist has his precise combination of skills.

Fela had the groove sense of James Brown and Prince's poise as an arranger; 
he was as articulate as Dylan, as charismatic as Bob Marley, and - for a 
time - as popular as any of those artists at their peak.

Most of all, the man who called himself 'the chief priest' was one of the 
music world's most skilled agitators.

His songs, which could stretch over an hour, were filled with passionate 
chants about military corruption and social inequality. Singing and 
shouting in pidgin English, a joint ever smouldering between his teeth, he 
conveyed both righteous indignation and a radical message in such famous 
rants as Teacher, Don't Teach Me No Nonsense, Black President, and Coffin 
For Head of State.

Born in 1938 in Abeokuta, Fela learned to work the saxophoneas a teeneger 
and, at the age of 21, went to London to study music and formed his first 
band. He returned home in 1963 and formed the Koola Lobitos band, playing a 
fusion of jazz and hi-life with little success.

He spent time in Ghana and the United States, where he developed a strong 
interest in politics and civil rights.

His concept for the politically charged fusion of rock with African rhythms 
into a blend known as Afro-beat came together in the late '60s, after he 
heard the Sierra Leonean singer Geraldo Pino and encountered the ideas of 
Malcolm X. On a trip to California in 1969, Fela met members of the radical 
Black Panthers and Koola Lobitos metamorphosed into Nigeria '70 (later 
called Africa '70 and finally Egypt '80) over a famous series of sessions 
in Los Angeles. Between 1975 and 1977, Afrika '70 recorded 17 albums - 
including the classic No Agreement - and these recordings spread their 
unique blend of funk vamping, jazz improvisation and Nigerian high-life 
around the world.

Fela eventually recorded some 133 albums and served as a godfather to other 
African artists.

"He is a legend," Malian singer Salif Keita said. "All modern African 
singers and musicians owe a lot to him." "For us, he was a monument, a 
reference point," said singer Lokua Kanza of Congo. "To hear him was like a 
blast of fresh air." Afro-beat was perfect for live performance and Fela 
was a hypnotic performer.

A brief sermon - about, say, Nigeria's need for modernization - would be 
followed by a forlorn blast from a horn section, or a high-intensity 
call-and-response between Fela and his battalion of backing singers.

When he finished singing, he turned his attention to the keyboard or the 
tenor saxophone, and crafted patient solos that took his large, interactive 
band down unlikely avenues.

A typical Fela show was a marathon that could be appreciated on several 
levels: as incessantly funky party music, as a mix of overt and subversive 
political messages, and as a sophisticated improvisational excursion.

As his popularity grew, Fela utilized his platform for ever-more-public 
anti-government agitation and became notorious for his promiscuity. A 
famous lover who married 27 women at a ceremony in 1978, he lived in a 
polygamous commune in the Lagos suburb of Ikeja, which he called 'Kalakuta 
Republic' and opened a nightclub, The Shrine. A bastion of freedom in what 
was becoming a military state, The Shrine was a place where the people 
could go to hang out, smoke herb, get loose and say and do what they liked.

Fela delared that his club was "the abode of the gods of Africa. It has its 
own powers. You cannot enter if you have a bad mind."

Those who were lucky enough to visit The Shrine in its heyday would find a 
capacity crowd jammed between the corrugated-iron walls, wooden cages in 
which Fela's dancers gyrated, and stalls where grass were on sale. When 
Fela himself finally appeared, long after his band had taken to the stage, 
he added to the haze as he lit an enormous joint (the first of many), 
before launching into a searing set, demonstrating why he was so important 
to African music.

In 1976, Fela topped the charts with Zombie, which describes government 
soldiers as no more than machines following orders, and the following year 
he got an official response when 1,000 zombies burned the Kalakuta compound 
to the ground.

His mother was badly injured in the raid and died six months later. 
Overnight, Fela became known as much for his politics as for his music. 
After military rule ended in 1979, Fela Kuti established his own political 
party, MOP (Movement of the People). With his entourage of wives and 
girlfriends, Fela went to the ruling junta's headquarters and placed his 
mother's coffin on the steps, saying he wanted to demonstrate that the 
power of the state was impotent compared to the indomitable power of the 
human spirit.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, during Nigeria's forcibly aborted 
attempts by civilians to establish a democratic government, Fela never 
shied away from stating his opposition to military rule. His blunt response 
to the rise of conservative politicians such as Reagan and Thatcher was 
Beasts of No Nation. In 1984, Fela was arrested at the airport as he was 
preparing to leave for a US tour on what Amnesty International described as 
'spurious' charges of illegally exporting foreign currency.

He was sentenced to ten years in prison, but released after eighteen months 
when General Muhammed Buhari was overthrown by General Ibrahim Babangida, 
who freed Fela but did not escape his criticism.

Rumours about Fela's health began to circulate in 1995, and though he gave 
infrequent and usually brief performances at The Shrine, he no longer 
toured. In his final two years Fela made little effort to challenge the 
next in Nigeria's succession of military dictators, General Sani Abacha. 
Even when his brother - Beko Ransome-Kuti, an outspoken political dissident 
- - was sentenced in 1996 to 15 years in prison for his involvement in an 
alleged coup plot, Fela stayed at home and waited for death.

He refused treatment for his deteriorating health, rejecting both Western 
and traditional Nigerian medical services, but continued using cannabis 
despite the best efforts of General Bamayi, head of the NDLEA, who said he 
hoped to reform Fela's character and wean him away from marijuana.

On 9 April, 1997, in a raid on The Shrine, Fela was arrested along with 
about 100 others, including several of his wives.

The zombies had one last go at forcing him to publicly renounce the holy 
herb, but eventually gave up and released him. "I have been smoking for 40 
years," Fela said. "It helps my music. People know I smoke worldwide. It is 
not drugs, it is grass."

To his amusement, local newspapers reported his death prematurely, but Fela 
finally died on Saturday August 2, 1997. "The immediate cause of death was 
heart failure, but there were many complications arising from the Acquired 
Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome," announced Fela's late older brother, Olikoye 
Ransome-Kuti. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake