This morning as I was trying to shed some ponds on the treadmill ( yeah yeah - I do go to the gym :-) a beautiful song came on my Ipod called "Zombie" by the everlastion Afro Beat Legend Fela Kuti. Wow what a genius. Still loving your work Guru!!!!
Here are some details on the great Man!!!
Fela was born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti in
Abeokuta,
Ogun State,
Nigeria[2] into a middle-class family. His mother,
Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was a
feminist activist in the anti-colonial movement and his father, Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, a Protestant minister and school principal, was the first president of the Nigerian Union of Teachers.
[3] His brothers,
Beko Ransome-Kuti and Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, both
medical doctors, are well known in Nigeria. Fela was a first cousin to the famous African Nobel Laureate
Wole Soyinka, the first African to win a Nobel Prize.
Fela was sent to London in 1958 to study
medicine but decided to study music instead at the
Trinity College of Music. While there, he formed the band Koola Lobitos, playing a fusion of
jazz and
highlife.
[4] In 1960, Fela married his first wife, Remilekun (Remi) Taylor, with whom he would have three children (
Femi, Yeni, and Sola). In 1963, Fela moved back to Nigeria, re-formed Koola Lobitos and trained as a
radio producer for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation. He played for some time with
Victor Olaiya and his All Stars.
[5] In 1967, he went to
Ghana to think up a new musical direction.
[3] That was when Kuti first called his music Afrobeat.
[3] In 1969, Fela took the band to the
United States. While there, Fela discovered the
Black Power movement through Sandra Smith (now Izsadore)—a partisan of the
Black Panther Party—which would heavily influence his music and political views and renamed the band Nigeria '70. Soon, the
Immigration and Naturalization Service was tipped off by a promoter that Fela and his band were in the U.S. without work permits. The band then performed a quick recording session in
Los Angeles that would later be released as The '69 Los Angeles Sessions.
After Fela and his band returned to Nigeria, the band was renamed to Africa '70 and the lyrical themes changed from love to social issues.
[4] He then formed the
Kalakuta Republic, a
commune, a
recording studio, and a home for many connected to the band that he later declared independent from the Nigerian state. Fela set up a
nightclub in the Empire Hotel, named the Afro-Spot and then the Afrika Shrine, where he performed regularly. Fela also changed his middle name to Anikulapo (meaning "he who carries death in his pouch"),
[6] stating that his original middle name of Ransome was a
slave name. The recordings continued, and the music became more politically motivated. [
citation needed] Fela's music became very popular among the Nigerian public and Africans in general.
[7] In fact, he made the decision to sing in
Pidgin English so that his music could be enjoyed by individuals all over
Africa, where the local languages spoken are
very diverse and numerous. As popular as Fela's music had become in Nigeria and elsewhere, it was also very unpopular with the ruling government, and raids on the Kalakuta Republic were frequent. During 1972
Ginger Baker recorded
Stratavarious with Fela appearing alongside
Bobby Gass.
[8] Around this time, Kuti was becoming more involved in
Yoruba religion.
[9] In 1977 Fela and the Afrika '70 released the hit album
Zombie, a scathing attack on Nigerian
soldiers using the zombie metaphor to describe the methods of the
Nigerian military. The album was a smash hit with the people and infuriated the government, setting off a vicious attack against the Kalakuta Republic, during which one thousand soldiers attacked the commune. Fela was severely beaten, and his elderly mother was thrown from a window, causing fatal injuries. The Kalakuta Republic was burned, and Fela's studio, instruments, and master tapes were destroyed. Fela claimed that he would have been killed if it was not for the intervention of a commanding officer as he was being beaten. Fela's response to the attack was to deliver his mother's
coffin to the
Dodan Barracks in Lagos, General
Olusegun Obasanjo's residence, and to write two songs, "Coffin for Head of State" and "Unknown Soldier", referencing the official inquiry that claimed the commune had been destroyed by an unknown soldier.
[10]Fela and his band then took residence in Crossroads Hotel as the Shrine had been destroyed along with his commune. In 1978 Fela married 27 women, many of whom were his dancers, composers, and singers to mark the anniversary of the attack on the Kalakuta Republic. Later, he was to adopt a rotation system of keeping only twelve simultaneous wives.
[11] The year was also marked by two notorious
concerts, the first in
Accra in which
riots broke out during the song "Zombie", which led to Fela being banned from entering
Ghana. The second was at the
Berlin Jazz Festival after which most of Fela's musicians deserted him, due to rumours that Fela was planning to use the entirety of the proceeds to fund his presidential campaign.
Despite the massive setbacks, Fela was determined to come back. He formed his own
political party, which he called Movement of the People. In 1979 he put himself forward for
President in Nigeria's first
elections for more than a decade but his candidature was refused. At this time, Fela created a new band called Egypt '80 and continued to record albums and tour the country. He further infuriated the political establishment by dropping the names of ITT vice-president
Moshood Abiola and then General
Olusegun Obasanjo at the end of a hot-selling 25-minute political screed titled "I.T.T. (International Thief-Thief)".
In 1984, he was again attacked by the military government, who jailed him on a dubious charge of
currency smuggling. His case was taken up by several human-rights groups, and after 20 months, he was released from prison by General
Ibrahim Babangida. On his release he divorced his 12 remaining wives, saying that "marriage brings jealousy and selfishness."
[11] Once again, Fela continued to release albums with Egypt '80, made a number of successful tours of the United States and
Europe and also continued to be politically active. In 1986, Fela performed in
Giants Stadium in
New Jersey as part of the
Amnesty International Conspiracy of Hope concert, sharing the bill with
Bono,
Carlos Santana, and
The Neville Brothers. In 1989, Fela and Egypt '80 released the anti-apartheid Beasts of No Nation album that depicts on its cover U.S. President
Ronald Reagan, UK Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher and South African Prime Minister
Pieter Willem Botha with fangs dripping blood.
His album output slowed in the 1990s, and eventually he stopped releasing albums altogether. In 1993 he and four members of the Afrika '70 organisation were arrested for murder. The battle against military corruption in Nigeria was taking its toll, especially during the rise of dictator
Sani Abacha. Rumours were also spreading that he was suffering from an illness for which he was refusing treatment. On 3 August 1997, Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, already a prominent
AIDS activist and former Minister of Health, stunned the nation by announcing his younger brother's death a day earlier from
Kaposi's sarcoma brought on by AIDS. (Their younger brother Beko was in jail at this time at the hand of Abacha for political activity.) More than a million people attended Fela's funeral at the site of the old Shrine compound. A new Africa Shrine has opened since Fela's death in a different section of Lagos under the supervision of his son
Femi Kuti.
