I haven’t wanted to listen to anything but Fela Kuti for weeks. It’s getting a little weird. In the car, Expensive Shit/He Miss Road has monopolized my stereo. and at home, rather than feebly attempt productivity, I’ve burnt countless hours scrounging around miscellaneous legally dubious corners of the web vainly attempting to acquire his entire discography. This isn’t the first time I’ve been on a Fela kick either. When I bought Expensive Shit, a few years back, I had a nice few weeks driving around Los Angeles, letting the afro-beat horns shower my eardrums with a soft copper rain and occasionally doing my best white-boy afro chants along with Fela (it wasn’t pretty, we’ll leave it at that.).
But this obsession is different and I’m not quite sure what to ascribe it to. Maybe it’s that after having pretty much ignored jazz for my first 26 years of living, I’ve been listening to a lot of it over the past few months, digging (I believe this is the only suitable verb) Miles, Coltrane, Andrew Hill, Mingus, Pharoah Sanders, and Tony Williams, among others. Or maybe it’s the way in which Fela’s hypnotic, afro-beat contains a protean quality that’s mirrored Los Angeles’ schizophrenic weather of late; with violent storms passing with almost tropical impatience, thundering for an hour or two and breaking into pale unbroken sky and bright, cold sun.
I guess it’s this sort of duality that makes Fela’s so music so compelling. It sounds like the music of a man who’s seen both heaven and hell, a wounded triumphalism suffused with radiance and pain, ecstatic vision and plaintive sorrow. There’s an atavistic wisdom there, the beatific notion that no matter what happens, transcendence is available at a slick burst of rainbow-colored keys and a golden wail of saxophone peals that twist towards the sky. Every culture’s got its own myths, a different path to that hazy notion of transcendence, and for me, Fela’s music is the Nigerian manifestation of god (well, that and Hakeem “The Dream” Olajuwon).
Cooler Than A Polar Bear’s Toe Nails
Such praise would be hyperbole were it lavished upon anyone else, but when you factor in the details of Fela’s Greek Tragedy existence, his music gains an added resonance. Inspired by the Black Panthers, whom he encountered during a short stay in Los Angeles at the tail-end of the 60′s, Fela’s music is rooted in a sense of struggle and resistance. When the immigration authorities deported him back to Africa, Kuti re-christened his backing band, Africa ’70 and sought to impart this new-found philosophy into song. Building himself a compound (The Kalakata Republic) that was part commune, part disco and part recording studio, Fela declared himself independent from the Nigerian state and married 27 woman. Sort of like Brigham Young, if Brigham Young were really cool. Naturally, his ideology flew contrary to the corrupt military dictatorship then ruling Nigeria (not like Brigham Young), and when you factored in Fela’s wild popularity, he was bound to draw static.
The shit went down (literally) in 1974 when the police raided his compound, hoping to plant a joint on him and frame him on drug charges. Wisely, Fela immediately grabbed the J and swallowed it, leaving the fascists dumbfounded. Beside themselves, the army officers hauled Fela into prison anyway and waited for him to shit out the joint, only for him to switch feces with another prisoner and walk off scot-free, mocking the government in song months later. A song, oh so subtly entitled, “Expensive Shit.”
The most toothless cliche around is the notion of the “brave artist.” Most recently, a spate of newspaper eulogies used the phrase to describe Heath Ledger and as much as I like “10 Things I Hate About You” the notion of bravery being defined as an actor playing a gay cowboy seems pretty laughable. Bravery is releasing an album called Zombie (no Cranberries) , flipping the metaphor to indict the repressive savagery of the Nigerian Army, watching them come to your disco crib with 1,000 blood-thirsty soldiers and throw your elderly mom fatally out of a window, while barely escaping death yourself. Bravery is delivering your dead mother’s coffin to the main army barrack in Lagos, and writing two hit songs, “Coffin for Head of State” and “Unknown Soldier,” about the ordeal.
Does This Guy Know How To Party Or What?
Among the music-nerd world. Fela’s a pretty well-known commodity, but in the world o’ the normals, the name Fela Kuti is more likely to be confused with an imaginary disease you may or may not have acquired from a girl in the first grade. That’s a shame. If anyone deserves the lucrative world of dorm room martyrdom a la Bob Marley, it’s Fela. If you haven’t heard him, there’s a sampler below. It’s good stuff, I promise. In the meantime, I’m going to start google searching for hotlines to wean me from this addiction. Do they use methadone for this sort of thing?
Download:
From The 1969 Los Angeles Sessions
MP3: Fela Kuti-”My Lady Frustration” (Left-Click)
From Live! (With Ginger Baker) (1971)
MP3: Fela Kuti-”Let’s Start” (Left-Click)
From Expensive Shit (1975)
MP3: Fela Kuti-”Expensive Shit” (Left-Click)
From Everything Scatter/Noise For Vendor Mouth (1975)
MP3: Fela Kuti-”Who No Know Go Know” (Left-Click)
From: Upside Down/Music of Many Colours (1976)
MP3: Fela Kuti-“2000 Blacks Got To Be Free” (Left-Click)
From Zombie (1977)
MP3: Fela Kuti-”Zombie”
20 comments
douglas martin says:
January 30, 2008 at 1:20 am (UTC -7)
although i’m faring a little better than you in the obsession department, i have to admit that expensive shit/he miss road hasn’t ventured far from my CD player since i burned the copy you sent me onto CD.
fela is the GOAT, dude.
floodwatch says:
January 30, 2008 at 5:53 am (UTC -7)
Ah, Fela… I haven’t listened to his music in a few years, but just the other day I thought I felt an oncoming bout of obsession in the near future, similar to what you’re experiencing at the moment.
Emusic has a few dozen Fela albums on their site, if you subscribe to that sort of thing.
blackmailismylife says:
January 30, 2008 at 6:31 am (UTC -7)
Echoing the comment above, it’s times like this that I’m happy to have a free Rhapsody account.
Dart_Adams says:
January 30, 2008 at 6:57 am (UTC -7)
My father had all his records and I’ve seen all of his documentaries from when I was a kid..I was also the only kid I knew that saw the Woodstock doc, The Isle Wight show doc, the Monterey Pop Festival doc, Jimmy Hendrix, Janis (both documentaries), and the T.A.M.I Show in 4th grade. No one else cared, though. One.
bobsled commando says:
January 30, 2008 at 7:59 am (UTC -7)
i think the first fela song i ever came across was africa-centre of the world. coming from a phish background, i’d endured my fair share of 15+ minute songs, but i still remember being so completely enthralled by this song the first time i heard it. i’d blast it on my headphones and just walk all over the city listening to that shit. but it wasn’t until someone finally took me to amoeba music in SF (finally) and i picked up a copy of expensive shit/he miss road that i REALLY fell in love with fela. i think next came live with ginger baker (GINGA BAKAH! Okay, that’s enough, the record is moving.) finally i got the ’69 LA sessions and open & close and consistently rock those on saturday mornings.
i love it for its JBs similarities, except with the energy turned way the eff up.
Deen says:
January 30, 2008 at 8:46 am (UTC -7)
That was some good stuff. You will not acquire his whole discography. Impossible.
My one regret is never stopping by his spot in Lagos, but I was too young to get in anyways. Besides, my Mom would have kicked me in the nuts if she found out that I was even considering that.
dudeasincool says:
January 30, 2008 at 10:52 am (UTC -7)
Nice find!!
Ryan says:
January 30, 2008 at 12:54 pm (UTC -7)
I got into Fela last fall pretty hard. I’d walk around LSU’s campus blasting it into my ears and at home my roomates, both who listen to mainstream rock, were like, “Dude, what the fuck are you listening to?” I tried to explain the magic of Fela but I couldn’t find the words. I took an African Politics class last semester and during my final project on Nigeria I used the last photo on the post in my presentation and briefly told Fela’s story to illustrate some of the problems of Nigerian politics. There are few artists that completely transcends music the way Fela does, and that’s not hyperbole.
BTW I have heard that he married his 27 wives, who were his dancers, out of protest against the Nigerian government. I’m not sure if that is correct or not though.
Disco Vietnam says:
January 30, 2008 at 12:58 pm (UTC -7)
I’d heard it was a lot more than a joint and he had to eat over an ounce that was laying around his compound. Hence why it was such an expensive shit.
Adam says:
January 30, 2008 at 1:52 pm (UTC -7)
Oh man, that story behind “Expensive Shit” is one of my favorite pieces of music trivia. I got the best-of set “Music is the Weapon” as a gift a couple years back, and it’s a really good collection, complete with a documentary about Kuti which includes some amazing live footage. Would’ve loved to have seen him perform…
satisfied75 says:
February 3, 2008 at 1:18 pm (UTC -7)
great post. i too go through fela phases — the man was a true badass.
ickmusic says:
February 7, 2008 at 5:17 pm (UTC -7)
[...] of the Weiss bestows upon us a MONSTER Fela Kuti post. Get there [...]
Gonzo says:
February 7, 2008 at 10:31 pm (UTC -7)
Great post – gotta love Fela. They **REALLY** need to put out a boxed set or two of albums (not compilations). I’d plunk down to get the complete collection in two or three swoops to the record store.
Matt says:
February 8, 2008 at 1:39 am (UTC -7)
Thanks.
I’ve had a few people tell me I ought to listen to Fela Kuti and now, thanks to you, I can give him a whirl.
Gig says:
February 16, 2008 at 4:06 pm (UTC -7)
Yay Yay Yay Wo Wo Wo – my brothers have been into Fela and told me some stories but I have been without the means to hear him. Thanks for posting these.
Spim Ramsley says:
March 4, 2008 at 8:37 am (UTC -7)
Wooooooooooooooow! A friend of mine introduced me to Fela 192 hours, 38 minutes and 28 seconds or so since I sat down to type this post. This is a big thanks for giving me the addiction, fine sirs (and madams if any were involved). Just talking about him with friends has resulted in me seeing a DVD documentary of him and more and more music. Fantastic!
henk madrotter says:
April 12, 2008 at 10:38 am (UTC -7)
hehehe, i’ve been having the fela fever for uhmmmhhhh, 26 years now, discovered him when the black president album came out and i never stopped loving him, there really is nobody else like him, i might have some joints you don’t have yet, i mean i have bought everything i came upon from fela in all those years, the live in amsterdam album, i’ve got an african press album called perambulator and more, just send me a mail and i’ll be happy to send you what i have, always happy to help out a fellow fela lover!!! loved the way you wrote this piece!!!
Funmi A says:
June 29, 2008 at 6:46 am (UTC -7)
Came across this in random, must say it’s a fantastic addiction to all things Fela! Props to you!
Passion of the Weiss » Blog Archive » A Tale of Two Samples: Fela Kuti’s “Mr. Grammarticalogylisationalism Is the Boss” and The Roots’ “I Will Not Apologize” says:
July 1, 2008 at 2:50 pm (UTC -7)
[...] or O-Dub, but couldn’t help but feel compelled to share a discovery I made the other day in my on-going quest to listen to every known bit of music ever recorded by Fela Kuti. Namely, the afro-beat derived [...]
Michael Ibitokun says:
July 26, 2011 at 4:21 am (UTC -7)
Fela’s is my mentor, he indeed is a prophet, he’ll lives in my heart 4va