Rediscovered: Fela Kuti & Africa '70

Over the last year, as you may have noticed, I've become increasingly interested in rediscovering the music of our parents generation (basically anything made from around 1960 through the early 80's). Although commercial music has continuously been evolving, the wide varieties of styles that grew out of what was originally called rhythm & blues (which replaced the term "race music") during this era at least feels like one of the greatest shifts that music has ever experienced. For me, this is when popular music really started to be great. I'll be writing a few posts now and then about some of my favorites from my forays into the music past.

One great thing about discovering this era of music is that there is no shortage of lists and reviews to help you find something you like. However, even better is the fact that we can throw these lists out, and decide for ourselves what music is relevant to us now when looking it through the lens of our own culture, insulated from the culture that surrounded it. In retrospect, we may find that the best stuff was the stuff that wasn't popular at the time because it hasn't been recycled as much as so many of the hits have. This is a perfect example of what's happened to Fela Kuti over the years since his death.


The Man
To call Kuti obscure would be a crime against his life and legacy. He was, and remains, a larger-than-life figure, but his popularity in the Western world is probably greater today than it ever was before. The "Fela revival" has spawned de facto tribute bands, such as Antibalas (how I first discovered Kuti about two years ago), and culminated in a Tony-nominated Broadway show.

While he was hugely popular in his native Nigeria and other West African countries throughout his entire career, it's took a while for him to build up much of a fan-base in the U.S. Of course, he did himself no favors, castigating Paul McCartney for trying to record with some of his musicians and delaying, and ultimately losing, a chance to sign a multi-million dollar deal with Motown at the behest of the spirits. Yet he did find an audience among a some American and English musicians who had more than a bit of a following in the West. First, after drawing from American funk as one of his original influences, he returned the favor, making an impact on Bootsy Collins and some of the other members of James Brown's band when they saw him at his nightclub, the Shrine, while touring Nigeria in 1970. A bit later his music became a template for the Talking Heads' Remain in Light, produced by Fela-enthusiast Brian Eno.

It's impossible to divorce Fela Kuti's politics from his music. After studying Malcolm X and other American civil rights activists, Kuti began to see the civil war and government corruption in his own country in a different light. Through his music, he would become a firebrand against the government and the Westernization of Africa. The self-styled "Black President" even declared his commune the Kalakuta Republic independent of Nigeria. It was later burned to the ground by the military after he provoked their ire (not for the first or last time) with his hit "Zombie." He later married 27 of his dancers and backup singers in a rejection of Western values and attempt to raise their status (1970's Nigeria was a different time and place—he later divorced them stating that no man can own a woman's vagina). In 1979 he attempted to get on the ballot for the Presidency of Nigeria, but was unsurprisingly rebuked. He wasn't the perfect activist, he denounced condoms as un-African despite his publicly active sex life and eventual death, most likely of AIDS, though he refused to be tested.

He certainly seems a bit wild sometimes, but he had a Promethean spirit that was impossible to break, despite numerous beatings by the government. He believed that Africa could break free of its cycle of corruption with just one example of a fair and open government, and he believed that he was the man for the job. It was this revolutionary spirit that drove him to keep making music and standing up against the authorities.

The only sad thing about Kuti's music is the fact that it is still relevant today. It wasn't until after his death that the Nigerian government returned to civilian elections, and even now, the elections are still marred by fraud and violence. The story is similar for other African nations, still reeling from Western colonialism. It's problem that's too big for one man, but we could certainly use more figures like Kuti to inspire people to try.

Anyway, his life is fascinating, I recommend starting with this article by Peter Culshaw where I got a lot of my info. But on to his music that I originally sat down to write about.

The Music
You can trace the foundational influence of Africa on popular Western music back quite a ways. It is present in the constant thread from the roots of jazz and blues through the beginnings of British rock & roll, whose musicians were certainly listening closely to American soul/R&B, even if their white audiences were largely unaware of their influences. What Kuti and his band did was to take this Western music, specifically jazz and funk, back to Africa. They mixed it with some traditional, and some not so traditional African styles, creating afrobeat, a celebratory, beat-driven, distinctively African funk. Kuti did most of the composing and arranging, but his band, Africa '70 (originally called Koola Lobitos) also deserves some mention, particularly leader Tony Allen, who laid down the complex rhythms behind Kuti. Kuti's best work was undoubtedly during the 1970s with the backing of Allen and Africa '70 (they split in 1979 over concerns over increasing government harassment and disputes over royalties).

Fela Kuti and Africa '70 didn't so much make song as they did long, sprawling grooves punctuated with blaring horns and Fela's distinctive vocals, often in Pidgin English (intended to make it accessible across Africa). It usually takes about 4 or 5 minutes just for the song to get going. Most of his albums consisted of just two, maybe three tracks clocking in around 30 minutes in total (by the end of the Seventies he had gotten into the habit of releasing just one album-length track at a time). Given this, it's hard to pick out any sort of landmark album, but I'll introduce two of my favorites.

Gentleman (1973)
In my opinion, this might be the best set of tracks, as an album, put out by Kuti on any single release. It can be seen as sort of an African pride album. The title track showcases Fela's saxophone style; he's a bit soulful, very funky. The rest of the ensemble builds around his solo, eventually arriving at a very African call-and-response between him and the horn section. The lyrics reject western traditions and ridicule the African leaders who adopt them. The first B-side "Fefe Naa Efe" is based off of an Ashanti proverb about women's breasts and running (I don't know exactly where Kuti was going with it). This one is a super loose groove, towards the end you get to hear Kuti take on his other primary instrument, the organ. I don't know what the final track "Igbe" is about (It's in the Yoruba language and Kuti sounds to be sort of scatting through a large portion of it), but it is a bit more frenetic than the first two. You can get a pretty good feel for what his music is all about from these three tracks. There's slight stylistic variation between them, but they all follow the same basic recipe.

Expensive Shit (1975)
The title track takes it's name from a run in with Nigerian police involving a joint and his feces. The beat on this one is pretty sick. Listen to it closely, and you can begin to understand how much of a genius Tony Allen is. The highlight on this release is really the B-side, "Water Get No Enemy,". It was one of the first Kuti tracks I heard, and the one that really turned me into a fan. It's a bit more jazzy than most of his other stuff, the beat is as danceable as ever, the syncopated chords on the organ are flawless, and there's just something about that moment when the horns reenter with the chorus that keeps me coming back.

So that's five tracks clocking in at around 55 minutes that I think can be as good an introduction as any to the music of Fela Kuti and Africa '70. After that I would recommend Zombie (1976) and then, I don't know, anything else he put out in the 70's. I can see how some people might be turned off by the long grooves, they definitely can draw on. But each one is a celebration, built on top of African rhythms that just keep compelling the song forward. With beats like theirs, it's hard to stop a groove once it gets going. In each track you can hear the distillation of Africa's greatest contribution to the Western pop music that we hear today: the beat. Fela Kuti said it best himself:

"Classical music gives musicians a kick. But African music gives everyone a kick. Once you get music with a beat, that is African music."

That's a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with.

So to recap:
Who: Fela Kuti & Africa '70
Ideal for: Funk aficionados, Africa enthusiasts/activists, hipsters
Not for: People with short attention spans, people who are beat deaf, Beliebers

The man himself: