FELA By Chris Connelly (From Roctober #25, 1999)

It seems to me somehow quite appropriate, and necessary, that during this stark and polarized time at the very tail end of the millennium, we are given the opportunity, by chance or by deliberation, to review and meditate upon some of the more important areas of culture that have served as either large or small exclamation marks through recent history.

In our culture, through the mediums available to us, we have the privilege and liberty to challenge, speak out against, parody and question our governments, our rulers, our police, our education system. Whether it be through rock music, painting, literature or film we are really quite spoiled-some of our governments may even fund our little artistic temper tantrums!

I, of course, do not need to tell you about other cultures where even the slightest criticism of government or dictatorship will inevitably end up in imprisonment, censorship, Torture, maybe even death,

A perfect example of what I am talking about is the music of FELA ANIKULAPO KUTI (nee Ransome Kuti), which has once again become available to us, after long periods of scarcity. With records changing hands between collectors and enthusiasts alike, it is now possible for us to build a picture, through his music, of an extremely important Icon, a martyr, a voice of the people and the country he loved, the man who invented and coined the phrase "Afro-Beat." Afro-Beat is a style of music that was uniquely Fela's own, blending together the hard funk of James Brown and his ilk with the popular music of many Africans called "High Life" (an up-tempo sound with a loping beat and a lot of emphasis on a very singular guitar style) and also incorporating Jazz, beautifully syncopated call and response vocals and brass (one of his many trade marks). He brought it all to the table with such raw and natural honesty and energy that it renders the serious listener quite breathless after a song by Fela (most songs typically taking up the side of an album, sometimes two!).

His sound is so unique that very few have come even close to approximating it (except, perhaps, his son FEMI KUTI, who, while earning the birth right to carry his fathers' torch, has breathed his own spirit heavily into the sound)

Fela was born in 1938 in Abeokuta, a Nigerian city whose history predates European colonial rule. His family heritage includes several generations of Christianity along with the rich and complex indigenous Yoruba culture, which extends throughout southwest Nigeria as well as into the neighboring nation of Benin.

The second youngest of four children, his father, the Reverend I.0. Ransome-Kuti, was a Grammar School principal at the school where Fela would attend, an extremely strict disciplinarian who ruled his school and the Kuti household, with an iron fist (Fela would claim to be the recipient of no less than 3000 strokes by his parents hands!)

His Mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti would be a huge influence on his life. She would become extremely active politically in the '40's, being the first voice to speak out for women's rights (mobilizing at one point 50 000 women to speak out against unfair tax laws) earning them the right to vote and earning herself the Lenin Peace prize in the early sixties.

It was not really until 1954 when Fela's musical legacy began when he met Jimo Kombi Braimah (JK for short) who would become a lifelong friend, and who at the time was the lead singer for a local band in Lagos called The Cool Cats. This would lead to Braimah forming a band with Fela, playing High Life and Jazz around Lagos, until the two left for London. Fela left to study music at Trinity College, and JK followed soon thereafter to study law at North Western Polytechnic. JK failed the entrance exam and opted instead to form a band with Fela - The Koola Lobitos would play their high-life music (much of it composed by Fela.) for other transplanted Nigerian students at student dances, and the like. This soon became a little more profitable when they began to infiltrate and play in the many Jazz clubs around London.

During this four year spell in London Fela met and married his first wife Remi Taylor, the daughter of a Nigerian father and Black American mother, born on the outskirts of London during the Second World War. She would bear him two children, a son and a daughter, before accompanying him back to Nigeria in 1963.

It was then that Fela coined the phrase Afro-Beat, infuriated and fascinated by a native of Sierra Leone called Geraldo Pino who was taking Nigeria by storm. Pino was playing the music of James Brown and other American Soul artists, robbing Fela of his audience and making him resolve to change his style and get "his shit together" before he became obsolete. The local press were paid off by Fela, a press conference called and the announcement was made that Fela was changing to "Afro Beat." Soon after that he started a club called the Afro-Spot, gaining a little prestige, but not enough to conquer the mighty Geraldo Pino ­ Nigeria's James Brown. The atrocities being brought about by the Biafran War were making the young Fela start to question his own political feelings a little, but ironically, it would not be until he left for America on a whim and a ticket paid for by someone else, that he would find his political voice.

After a few fruitless months with his band on the poverty line in New York, with no record company interest and expired visas, it was decided that a move to L.A. might yield better results. It was there that he met Sandra Isidore, a native of L.A., who would change Fela's life forever. As Fela's lover, friend and collaborator, Sandra, a fiercely intelligent woman and an impassioned black rights activist, opened Fela's eyes in ways they had not been opened before. She earned his undying respect by being a black woman who had fought, and been sent to prison, for her beliefs. She would also change his life by making him read The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Almost overnight Fela started to re-think his musical direction, ditching much of the highlife sound and bringing in more hard funk and more traditional African Chanting. Afro Beat was finally a real and tangible thing (Fela's music at this time can be best exemplified by the records "'69 Los Angeles Sessions" and "Fela's London Scene." Here it is easy to hear where the music was headed, and where it was coming from, with a strong J.B's /Meters influence). He brought his new sound to some of the small clubs around L.A. and it was received often with the slack jawed amazement of something powerful that had never been heard before, which, of course, it was.

With heightened purpose, a new energy and a new sound, Fela returned to Lagos where he changed the name of his band to Africa 70, and began to have hits. He opened his new club, The Shrine, and started his own commune that would later become the Kalakuta Republic. It was at this time, with the opening of his own club, that the police would show up and try to stop Fela from performing his now notoriously political songs, his blossoming popularity becoming his worst enemy. Another trip to London yielded a session at the famous Abbey Road studios, and the forming of a working friendship with Cream's Ginger Baker. (As well as the "London Sessions" album, a live album with Ginger Baker was cut. Ginger Baker would later produce the excellent "He Miss Road" album in 1975.)

It has to be said that Fela's career was incredibly prolific, releasing approximately 50 albums during his career. At the time of his return to Lagos in the early '70's,he was, by his own reckoning releasing 8 albums per year. Each was filled with outspoken political slander (sung in pidgin English, so that they could bypass the multitude of tongues spoken in Africa, and be understood by all) aimed at the legendarily corrupt Nigerian police, army and political leaders. Fela once said that he liked the situation in South Africa better because at least the whites were honest about hating the blacks. Understandably the corrupt leaders were furious that this man would speak out against them, make fun of them, and be adored by so many. Thus began the harassment and raids of his commune. A grass smoker, it did not matter how clean his dwelling was kept of paraphernalia or weed, the police who would show up at any given moment would simply plant evidence to ensure an arrest. Once when Fela was presented during a search of his home with a joint, he claimed to the officer holding the contraband, that he could not see it. He repeated this over and over, until the joint was in his face, at which time he snatched it and swallowed it! The police decided to wait on the imprisoned Fela to excrete the offending article so they would have evidence enough to prosecute, but his cell mates would wake him in the middle of the night to use the communal pail -leaving the bumbling police to wonder how their prisoner could go for so long without shitting! It was this incident that inspired the album "Expensive shit."

Hounded by police and with his popularity reaching new heights, a 3 1/2 metre high barbed wire fence was put up around the Kalakuta Republic and guards were put at the gate. This did not stop the November '75 raid where police showed up, armed with axes (to tear down the fence), a flimsy abduction charge (the girl in question was a willful resident of Kalakuta), and tear gas. Everyone was beaten, Fela so severely that he was taken to hospital and not jail. The ridiculous charge was thrown out of court and the whole incident inspired the impassioned album, "Kalakuta Show," an amazing piece that starts off with a beautiful, lonely sax played by Fela and turns into a furious rant complimented by the Africa 70s' frenetic musical jackhammer.

Mercifully, after a couple more incidents, all very public, the police were forced to lay off for a while because too many people knew what was going on, but it was to be a short lived respite.

It was at this time that the name Ransome was dropped ("Do I look like an Englishman?" he angrily asked one journalist who asked him why he changed his name) and the name Anikulapo adopted in its' place, meaning, "having control over death." At Fela's invitation, Sandra Isidore visited Nigeria and recorded with the Africa 70,using her remarkable voice to sing the song, "Upside Down." In the late part of 1976, into the early part of 1977, the Nigerian rulers and military were planning a huge festival of African culture, FESTAC. Fela declined to have any participation in FESTAC after his proposal to make the festival more of a "festival for the people" rather than some kind of government show-and-tell, was ignored. Instead he opted to play every day to capacity audiences at his famous Shrine night club for the month long duration of the festival, using the stage to denounce the government to the many visitors attending from all over the world. This outraged the government into committing the most atrocious actions against Fela and the people of his "Kalakuta Republic" yet.

In mid February of 1977, about 1,000 members of the military went to Kalakuta Republic, blazed through the electric fence, set fires, brutally beat everyone in sight, raped any number of the many women who lived there, and threw Fela's 77 year old mother out of a window (which eventually resulted in her death). The whole of Kalakuta Republic was burned to the ground.

After a month in prison, Fela was taken to court and charged. A counter attack by Fela was thrown out of court a year later, leaving him no compensation and calling him a hooligan as well as maintaining that the Kalakuta Republic was burned by "unknown soldiers" (hence the title of 1979's album "Unknown Soldier").

In casts and bandages, penniless and homeless, the 80 former inhabitants of Kalakuta Republic spent a few weeks bedding down at the offices of Decca Records before heading off to Ghana to play and promote the album, "Zombie," a huge hit with the students in that country. The gist of the song is that it mocks the soldiers as being mindless zombies. After several successful concerts, and after talking to many students, Fela et al. were deported from Ghana, whereupon they traveled to Berlin to play (the results of which can be heard on the live album "V.I.P.").

Back in Lagos Fela did something that still to this day raises many eyebrows. In one ceremony, he married every one of his dancers and singers, calling them his "Queens," and giving them all the name of Anikulapo-Kuti. It was the first anniversary of the burning of the Kalakuta Republic. He has said that this was the happiest day of his life, but as seemed to be so often in his life, it was to be very short lived. Less than two months later his mother died as a direct result of the wounds incurred after being thrown from a window by the military a year earlier. The devastated Fela would announce to everyone that he intended to deposit his mother's coffin outside the Dodan Barracks - residence of the dictator Olusegun Obesanjo (who had ordered the 1,000 strong raid on Kalakuta Republic). Despite roadblocks courtesy of the already alerted military, the coffin was deposited, and Fela and his pallbearers turned around quietly and left. Many have referred to the album "Coffin for Head of State" as being Fela's most powerful and emotionally charged work.

It seemed that after the outlawing of his political party Fela started in the late 70s, "Movement of the People," his rebellious fire began to wane. A bizarre and strong spiritual journey to Egypt had such a profound effect on him, that he changed the name of his band from AFRICA 70 to EGYPT 80. The Egypt 80 continued to release music of a very high calibre, touring and recording, including a stint with producer BILL LASWELL and perhaps the most respected rhythm section in the world SLY DUNBAR and ROBBIE SHAKESPEAR. Check out the albums, "Army Arrangement" and "Teacher Don't Teach Me No Nonsense." The LASWELL produced sessions were completed without Fela's participation due to his famous imprisonment for, what was called by Amnesty International, "spurious" currency smuggling charges. The two years he spent in prison tragically dampened his fiery spirit. Although records were recorded and released and concert tour commitments fulfilled, his political silence and seeming (almost) complacency led to rumours of ill health that led to AIDS related rumours. Visitors and those closest to him noticed his retreat into himself and a very out of character quietness.

Fela died at age 57 on August 21 1997 in Lagos. The announcement was made by his brother, Beko Ransome-Kuti, former deputy general for the World Health Organisation. The cause of death was announced as, "Complications brought on by AIDS," though many have since said that they feel that his ill health was due to the sheer brutality inflicted upon his body and spirit by the police and military. It was indeed a sad end, and seems almost a little like the story of Rasputin in the hands of the Russian royalty who wanted him dead ­ so was Fela's spirit in the hands of the fascist military who wanted it broken, only to find they had taken on a spirit and a life force that was (for several decades at least) too, too strong.

All of the recordings I have mentioned are available again, on two-for-one C.D.'s, on single L.P. or as part of the beautiful L.P. box sets (very limited) containing 6 albums each. Other titles I can recommend are: "Confusion," "Original Sufferhead," "International Thief Thief," "Yellow Fever," "Na Poi," "Opposite People," "Two Sides of Fela," "He Miss Road," "Open And Close," "Johnny Just Drop," and "Shakara."