We tend to ascribe false divinity to genius. Brilliance isn’t always a rite of passage right out of the womb. The truth is more sinuous. Before he became Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie was Davey Jones, a Marc Bolan manque. Before Hendrix became Hendrix, he spent a half-decade in anonymity, honing his style on the road […]

Paul McCartney understood that only one man was legitimately bigger and better than Jesus: Fela Anikulapo Kuti. He who carries death in his pouch. John Lennon may have gotten assassinated by the coward Mark David Chapman, but Fela Kuti had to watch his mother get defenestrated by army zombies in the middle of his private […]

Fela. Egypt 80. Paris 1984. Previously unreleased footage. What more do you need to know?

Another episode of Shots Fired, another blog post in which I awkwardly ramble about the title of said episode. But Nocando pointed out that Africa is the cradle of civilization, so technically, it is everyone’s Motherland. All qualifies aside, this is one of my favorite episodes that we’ve done. The first half is devoted to […]

From the best album of the year that no one is talking about, even though it’s co-produced by Brian Eno. I caught Seun last Friday and you can have your Animal Collectives and Gang Gangs, but there was nothing at the Pitchfork Festival that was fucking with this man and Egypt ’80. No offense. But […]

Hip-hop hiatus today. It’s all Afro-beat everything right now at Passion of the Weiss headquarters, where I’m celebrating the Ides of March a day early by listening to Pax Nicholas’ 1973 classic, Na Teef’s Know Road of Teef. After all, the themes are vaguely similar. Consider Na Teef, Nicholas’ act of rebellion against the Caesarean […]

Sure, sure, G-Dub and Lincoln receive the lion’s share of limelight today — a holiday in name only as people shake off hangovers and hit up department store sales. But in my chimerical version of reality, there is a yearly day off dedicated to Fela Kuti, the Black President and only man capable of balancing […]

In the hopes that a co-sign from Sean Carter and Willow Smith’s dad will suddenly stir your desire to cop a half-dozen coasters that you can illegally download via the magic of Google search, Knitting Factory Records has made an MP3 of “Zombie” available to you, discerning blog readers of the galaxy. I have yet […]

Such is the influence of Fela Kuti that a compilation dedicated to the music he inspired could conceivably include almost anything made in Central and West Africa during the decade of this outfit. He was John Lennon and Bob Marley rolled into one Lincoln log-sized cone of igbo (Indian Hemp). He created a viscous solution […]

Fridays are for Fela. Download: MP3: Fela Kuti-“Kalakuta Show” (Left-Click)