FELA! THE "BLACK PRESIDENT” ON BROADWAY.

17 April 2010;

Last week, Nigeria’s acting President Goodluck Jonathan strutted the streets of Washington, DC in search of international recognition and legitimacy. On Broadway in New York City, the authentic "Black President,” Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was wowing audiences and garnering critical acclaim at the Eugene Theatre. Until his death on August 2, 1997, Fela (pix-2, 9, 10, 11) was the most well-known, provocative and arguably original musician to have come out of Africa. In his afro-beat brand of music, Fela found a perfect form for his lacerating lyrics and pulsating rhythm. His musical genius was matched – perhaps even surpassed – by his revolutionary fervor and the sheer drama of his personal life. A scourge of Nigeria’s military and civilian governments, he was detained numerous times and even tortured. In 1977, Fela’s Kalakuta Republic, a wide swathe of territory in Yaba where he lived and where his eclectically radical political lyrics had inspired a huge following of the urban poor, was razed by Nigerian soldiers who also threw his elderly mother from the top floor of the musician’s residence.

A year after in 1978, Fela created a national and international sensation when he married 27 women on the same day.

By the time of his death, Fela had taken his music to most parts of the world and had become a household name internationally. His name had become synonymous with irreverence and staunch opposition to the abuses and excesses of authoritative regimes. Fela: a name known throughout Nigeria and beyond, a name that resounds with fearlessness and defiance. To say the name Fela is to recreate in people’s minds the unmistakable sound that the maestro made his signature, and which has spawned a large crowd of imitators over the past few decades.

Now, a Broadway production titled “Fela!” has entranced thousands of theatre buffs and helped spur a new fascination with the afro-beat king’s music, personality and philosophy.

Directed and choreographed by the acclaimed director Bill T. Jones (pix 4), “Fela!” Is worthy of the legendary figure that inspired this triumphant, thrilling musical. Mr. Jones has recreated the ebullient narrative of the Nigerian legend through explosive song and provocative dance numbers. The instant one walks into the theatre, one is welcomed to the atmospherics of “The Shrine” – with conga drums, the second-base guitar, and the percussion that builds up anticipation for the appearance of Fela, played by Sahr Ngaujah(Pix-4,5,8,9).

From the moment of his appearance, Mr. Ngaujah captures the spirit of the revolutionary musician down to his signature grunt of “EH-Hum!” Sahr Ngaujah’s demeanor powerfully evokes the persona of the original whose presence electrified the “Shrine,” surrounded by his alluring female dancers, gyrating fiercely.

The musical weaves in and out of Fela's story, touching on important junctures in his vast and complex life. The audience is taken on an journey that showcases such central moments as the influence of Fela’s mother's wisdom, his musical trajectory, and finally his rise to the station of Nigeria’s “rebel with a cause” who was thrown into jail some 200 times, had his name removed from the electoral ballot, and had his home burnt to the ground.

The musical engages the audience in a call-and-response that is in Fela’s spirit and tradition, and even offers a quick lesson in “Nyash,” a demonstration of the fevered shake of the backside.

The effect on the audience is akin to the experience of attending a Fela concert. “Fela!” vibrantly displays the artist's talent, boundless stage energy and recreates that resonant, reaching voice that enabled Fela to hold audiences in his spell. This musical offers Fela’s teeming fans the opportunity to relive the late star’s glory with some of his most famous classics, including “Zombie” and “Water No Get Enemy.”

The show has earned the gushing critical acclaim it has garnered, and has become a true crowd puller. It continues to draw a huge audience. It is now scheduled to play at London's Olivier Theater starting in November 2010.

Among the crowd, Abike Dabiri, a member of Nigeria’s House of Representatives from Lagos,was seen hanging out with the entire cast after the show. Mrs. Dabiri, who was in the company of her husband, and Lemi Ghariokwu (pix-6.Misani ,photo)the artist who helped design some of Fela's albums. Unconfirmed information is that Mrs. Dabiri inquired about the possibility of bringing “Fela!” to Lagos.

One cannot think of a more appropriate location. It would be like Fela returning home. It’s splendid that this transporting and hugely celebratory production is drawing more Nigerian and African audiences.

JAY-Z BECOMES A BROADWAY PRODUCER FOR 'FELA!'

The rapper found the musical about the Nigerian Afrobeat legend 'fascinating.'(Pix 7)

NEW YORK — After having Los Angeles singing about their "Empire State of Mind" at the American Music Awards on Sunday, Jay-Z returned home on Monday evening to share in a different kind of celebration. Along with celebs like Ben Stiller, Harry Belafonte and Gayle King, Jay attended the Broadway opening of "Fela!," a musical celebrating the work of another great man, the late Nigerian superstar Fela Anikulapo Kuti.

Jay said that he jumped onboard the project as a producer for its Broadway (along with Will and Jada Pinkett Smith) run because he was inspired by the power of Kuti's music and life story.
"It's an inspiration, about the power of music. Here's a guy that's on the other side of the world who was influenced by James Brown, who takes this thing and makes his own sort of genre of music," Hov told MTV News. "I just think it's fascinating."

"Fela!" focuses on the life and music of the Afrobeat pioneer and political activist, who first broke out on the international scene in the 1970s. It was written by Jim Lewis and Bill T. Jones (pix-3) who also choreographed the musical, and features Kuti's music, arranged and performed by members of the Brooklyn Afrobeat orchestra Antibalas.Pix-15)

Jones, a world-renowned dancer and choreographer, said that musical wouldn't have been possible without another producer, Stephen Hendel.
"This was one man's dream, Stephen Hendel — a very sweet man who loved Fela's music and was determined it would be on Broadway," Jones said. "It was because of that one man's dream and love, something that I really appreciate and love and something that I know Fela stands for." Jones said that the music translates so well onto the stage because of its genius and uncontrollable energy.
"Fela's music is unwieldy, but it is brilliant and it is music that really wants groups of people to come together and enjoy."

Jay-Z (Jay-Z at the Opening of 'Fela!' (Pix -7)was one of those people who enjoyed Kuti's music. He became involved the play after seeing it during its Off-Broadway runs. That might never have happened, however, without the prompting of another hip-hop heavyweight, ?uestlove of the Roots. ?uestlove attended a very early show and sent an e-mail blast declaring "Fela!" to be the best musical ever. Once he saw the play, he said he was instantly moved.

"Moved to the point that I blogged about it for hours, and then when the producers read my blog, they so graciously asked me to go out and bat for them and grab any of my friends that make over nine to 10 figures a year to come and lend their 'muscle,' " ?uestlove told us.
For eight weeks, he begged people, bought tickets and even the balcony out, so that the message would get out there. Pointing to Jay, the drummer added, "As you can see, the right man finally came."


COMING TO TOWN: JAY-Z AND A VERY LUCKY FELA
Beyonce's fella Jay-Z is one of the producers behind Fela!, a landmark Broadway show that is transferring to the National Theatre in November.
Fela! (pix-2, 10, 11, 12,18) is about the Nigerian Afrobeat music legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti, probably better known here as just Fela Kuti.
He created the irresistible fusion of West African rhythms, funk, jazz and - hey! - sweat, to come up with a sound that instantly gets you up on your feet and dancing, pelvis thrust out as you swivel from side to side.
The show originated at an off-Broadway house and then moved to the Eugene O’Neill Theatre on Broadway five months ago. At that point, Stephen Hendel, Fela’s lead producer, reached out to Shawn Carter (Jay-Z) and Will Smith and his wife Jada, who invested $1million between them to become producers.


FILE - In this undated image released by Richard Kornberg and Associates, Sahr Ngaujah(pix-5) stars as Nigerian musician Fela Anikulapo Kuti in "Fela!". Fela, the late Nigerian musican and political agitator, fascinatined millions and had fans around the world, including legends like Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder. Yet he was, and still is, largely unknown to popular audiences, especially in the United States.

Fela!’s original star, Sahr Ngaujah(pix-4,5,8,9), currently to be found wowing them in the aisles in New York, will portray Fela on the National’s Olivier stage, with a first night planned, but not set, for November 16 and, obviously, a run of previews before then.
Ngaujah performs in NY with an alternate, Kevin Mambo, and he will share performances in London.
Fela! will give around 60 to 65 performances from November through to the end of January.

Ngaujah was the key stipulation of Nicholas Hytner, the National’s artistic chief, who saw the actor in Fela! on Broadway.
Hytner and the NT’s executive director Nick Starr also insisted that Fela’s creative team, led by director and choreographer Bill T. Jones, also be involved in the London premiere.

It’s very rare that the National goes outside for productions. Osage:August County and Caroline Or Change were two such shows the theatre brought over from the US.
‘Well, Fela! is that times two!’ Starr told me.
It’s going to be great fun seeing the show at the National and I hope it attracts people outside of the NT’s traditional, mostly middle-class, mostly white, audience.
However, having said that, that base audience, who are busy loving London Assurance at the moment, should adore Fela!
And what’s exciting both the National and Stephen Hendel, Fela!’s lead producer is that it will run in repertory with a production of Hamlet, which Hytner will direct with Rory Kinnear as the Danish prince and Clare Higgins as Gertrude, his conflicted mother.

For Hendel, who conceived and moulded Fela! with Bill T. Jones, and Jim Lewis, who penned the show’s book and wrote additional lyrics, the National invitation is like a benediction.

‘We are enormously gratified that the most prestigious theatre in the English-speaking world has somehow come to our show, and was moved by our show, and wanted to have a production of it while it’s still running in New York,’ Hendel told me.
Fela! has been a labour of passion and love for Hendel and his colleagues. I remember the first time I saw it: I had just flown in to New York and I was exhausted, but as I walked into the 37 Arts Theatre I heard the band playing and, suddenly, all was well with the world.
Hendel said: ‘When people come into our theatre in New York and see the band is playing 20 minutes before curtain, and they see how the theatre has been transformed, you can see their bodies relax, their faces open up, their eyes light up, and they start bopping their heads.’ It’s true. You feel and hear the audience’s enjoyment.

At one show, Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy were in the row behind me, dancing away, and a stiff, patrician couple who had seemed rather standoffish earlier on were moving to the beat.
Fela! is celebratory but it doesn’t shy away from Fela Kuti’s shortcomings. He was at one with the ‘weed’; he had a stable of wives; but he also had fascinating rhythm (he loved Frank Sinatra, John Coltrane and James Brown); and he wasn’t afraid to rattle the Nigerian authorities and denounce them for their brutality.
Director Jones weaves all this disparate information, and much more, into a cohesive piece that grabs you by the collar and wakes you up.
Ngaujah’s opening line in Fela! is: ‘We’re going to dance and we’re going to sweat!’
Hendel explained that full casting will begin in London within the next couple of months, and rehearsals will start in September.
The London casting directors will look for a London-based actor to play the title role should Fela! move from the National, and Ngaujah and Mambo have returned to the US.

The NT production is being produced solely by the National, but if it finds favour here then the hope is to move into the West End with the National and the New York producers participating.
Jay-Z and Will and Jada have busy schedules, but Hendel told me: ‘I can’t imagine that they will not come to the First Night in London. I can’t imagine that Jay -Z, and probably Beyonce, too, and Will and Jada will not come.’
He added: ‘In the theatre world it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience to have your production honoured on the National Theatre stage.’


‘Fela!’ Broadway? Dance!


“MOVE!” Bill T. Jones commanded. “Rhythm, rhythm, rhythm!” (pix 8) Sahr Ngaujah, one of the alternating leads, in a scene from the musical “Fela!,” drawn from the life of the bandleader Fela Anikulapo Kuti.
He was airborne, being lifted and carried across the stage of the Eugene O’Neill Theater by four dancers, perfecting their timing in a climactic ritual scene. It was hands-on choreography while an actor who would actually be carried, Kevin Mambo, observed from the wings. Mr. Jones, a pre-eminent modern-dance choreographer who won a Tony Award for his work on “Spring Awakening,” was rehearsing his full-scale debut as a Broadway director: “Fela!,” based on the life and music of the Nigerian bandleader and political rebel Fela Anikulapo Kuti. (pix 10) The King of Afrobeat ; Mr. Kuti performing in 1990.

FELA WHO? ON BROADWAY?


Those are basic questions that “Fela!” faces when it opens on Monday. (Pix-13)The show has moved from a widely praised Off Broadway production, last year at 37 Arts, to the larger and more mainstream realm of the Broadway musical — from 299 seats to 1,050. Amid theaters filled with more recognizable fare — movie adaptations, revivals, jukebox musicals — “Fela!” seems downright quixotic. Although the music that Fela invented, Afrobeat, and the central events of “Fela!” are familiar to Africans, in the United States Fela (as Kuti is usually called) is largely unknown except by African-music devotees and fans of political music.

“We have an uphill battle,” said Stephen Hendel, the producer who started the project, “because we don’t have a recognized star, and Fela is an international artist and musician who’s outside the mainstream of American culture.”
The goal “Fela!” has set for itself, is to be true to his music and his impact while reaching a Broadway musical audience. It is, inevitably, a translation, but one governed more by respect and ambition than by show-business routine. “Fela!” juggles the conflicting demands of Mr. Jones’s own artistic leanings — in a celebrated career that has often pondered history, race and sexuality — and the commercial imperatives of Broadway, where theatergoers’ idea of African music might begin and end with “The Lion King.”

There’s also the legacy of Fela himself, well documented in recordings and films from the 1970s until his death in 1997, that is cherished by fans for whom he was already a musical and cultural hero. “There are people who, when they heard we were going to make a musical about him, were very upset,” Mr. Jones recalled. “Because, Fela’s underground and Broadway’s mainstream.”
That shifted with the Off Broadway production last year. Early in its run Ahmir (Questlove) Thompson, the drummer for the Roots — the long-running hip-hop group that is now the house band for “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” — saw an early preview that prompted him to write a post for his mailing list and his blog declaring “Fela!” to be “the BEST MUSICAL EVER CREATED.” Celebrities, from Alicia Keys to Susan Sarandon to Stephen Sondheim to Jay-Z, began showing up nightly; word of mouth spread exponentially.

Longtime Broadway producers wanted to sign on, but Mr. Hendel was leery of pressures that they might bring to make the show “more quote Broadway unquote,” he said. Now Jay-Z is among the producers, and Mr. Thompson is an associate producer. A rebellious, police-taunting, raunchy, politically conscious, dope-smoking character like Fela could easily make headway in hip-hop culture — and he has the beats to back him up.

Reviewing the Off Broadway production last year for The New York Times, Ben Brantley called it “one helluva party.” He added, “In giving physical life to Mr. Kuti’s songs of political rage, sorrow and satire, Mr. Jones and company offer exciting music and its social context in one breath.”
In Africa, Fela, who died at 58 of complications from AIDS, is a figure to rival Bob Marley as both a musical innovator and a symbol of resistance. Afrobeat, the style he forged in the early ’70s, combined African rhythms and messages with the jazz and funk that Fela absorbed during his education in Britain and the United States. Ghanaian highlife, Nigerian Yoruba rhythms, Afro-Cuban mambos, James Brown, John Coltrane, Nina Simone and, yes, Frank Sinatra all flowed into his music, which sounds exactly like none of them.

Afrobeat is insinuating but hard-headed, with stubbornness encoded in its sound and its lyrics. Its grooves are unhurried and hypnotic, with guitar, bass and drums
locked into repetitive patterns while voices and horns leap freely. On Fela’s albums songs stretch 10 to 20 minutes, in long, tension-and-release forms. Each track is an excursion through verses, choruses, jagged horn-section lines, call-and-response vocals with Fela’s backup singers and dancers (who were his wives), individual solos and bruising full-band attacks.

It’s music of steadfastness and endurance, of uncompromising determination. It’s
also, of course, dance music, made for long nights in clubs. Within the grooves Fela’s lyrics denounce corruption and injustice, call for African values and challenge authority.
Fela was defiant by both instinct and ideology, and he was repeatedly arrested, beaten and imprisoned for his opposition to a succession of Nigerian regimes. In 1977 soldiers burned down the compound where he lived with his wives, musicians and entourage — a pivotal episode in the Broadway show. Afterward Fela changed his name from Fela Ransome Kuti to Fela Anikulapo Kuti; “Anikulapo” means “he who carries death in his pouch.”

Fela was a complex, willful and often contradictory man. “I probably wouldn’t get along with him,” Mr. Jones said with a laugh. Fela was born into a privileged family; his father was an Anglican priest, and his mother was a feminist leader.

Yet he was also a hedonistic rock star, flaunting big marijuana spliffs and his 27 wives — his “queens.” Despite his education he adopted the voice of the poor, singing in a lower-class pidgin of English and tribal languages, and insisting that he was promoting an “authentic African” culture to defy a lingering colonial mentality. And though Fela was shaped by strong women, notably his mother, he claimed that true African women should be submissive. While “Fela!” is largely celebratory, it also notes its hero’s inconsistencies.

“I’m not interested in hagiography,” Mr. Jones said. “Fela Kuti is a sacred monster, and no progressive, democratic-leaning society should be without one — this provocateur, this enfant terrible.” Mr. Jones said he was attracted to the character because he was willing to suffer for his beliefs. “I’m pretty sure that’s what he was about,” he said. “At least that’s what we make him in the show to be about.”
“Fela!” the Broadway musical — complete with exclamation point in its title — is slightly less insubordinate. Its running time is a conventional Broadway two and a half hours, shortened from the Off Broadway versions. But otherwise, “Fela!” shakes up its environment, making a Broadway theater look like a club.

The chronology of the show, set in 1978 but including events from the 1980s isn’t fully accurate, Mr. Jones allowed. Like Fela it prefers the mythic to the mundane and presents its story not through linear narrative but in songs, explosive dances, recollections and flashbacks loosely woven through a performance that Fela gave at the Shrine, his club in Lagos, Nigeria’s capital. It relies on the simmering beat of his music and the indefatigable dancing of an ensemble that regularly spills offstage and into the audience.

The band, with members of the Brooklyn Afrobeat group Antibalas at its core, ambles on stage and starts playing before curtain time. But “Fela” is clearly a theater work, not a concert.
Fela is onstage for all but two minutes in a role so demanding that the show has two leads: a shifting schedule of five performances a week by Sahr Ngaujah, who originated the role, and three by Mr. Mambo, who joined for the Broadway run.

To embody Fela, Mr. Ngaujah said he had been studying documentary footage for the last four years. “The speaking patterns, the way he smokes a cigarette, the way he lights marijuana,” he said. “ Even the way he turns to left and right. Because he had been beaten so many times, there were restrictions on his bone structure.”
Mr. Jones’s choreography draws on what Fela’s queens did onstage — some serious bump and grind — but isn’t confined by it. “It also had to be held together with other vocabulary,” he said, “with virtuosity that says something about form and energy and meaning. Our dancers are amazingly wholesome, athletic, lifted, trim. Fela’s women were real women.”

The music follows an even trickier path between reproduction and reinvention. When Antibalas was formed in 1998, its mission was to preserve Afrobeat “as it was created,” said Aaron Johnson, Antibalas’s trombonist and the music director of “Fela!” The songs were written for all-night parties, not tight Broadway shows.
In early workshops Mr. Jones and the playwright Jim Lewis, with whom he wrote the book for “Fela!,” envisioned purely imagistic scenes based around Fela’s songs, in a clublike setting with a dance floor. Pragmatism intervened. Mr. Jones recalled: “The people who were putting money into this thing said: ‘No, no, no, no. You need to make more concessions to telling a story — something that starts somewhere and goes somewhere.’ That was hard.”



FELA MUSEUM


Black President: the Art and Legacy of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti
"77 albums, 27 wives, over two hundred court appearances. Harassed, beaten, tortured, jailed. Twice-born father of Afro-beat. Spiritualist. Pan-Africanist. Commune king. Composer, saxophonist, keyboardist, vocalist, dancer. Would-be candidate for the Nigerian presidency. There will never be another like him."

--Jay Babcock, Mean Magazine (Dec 1999-Jan 2000)

Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (1938-97) was a musical revolutionary who achieved a level of stardom in his native Nigeria barely imaginable. A charismatic and controversial bandleader with raw sex appeal, Fela was a powerful activist and arguably Africa's most pioneering and influential musician. He invented a new musical genre called Afrobeat that merged Nigerian highlife music, Yoruba percussion and American funk and jazz into one infectious groove. Injecting politically charged lyrics on top of the multi-layered rhythms, his music became a call to arms against tyranny and injustice.

A fearless champion of the oppressed, Fela was also a utopian visionary. He proclaimed his compound, where he resided with his extended family, band mates and street toughs, an independent nation for the marginalized masses, free from the laws and jurisdiction of the Nigerian government. He called this counterculture haven the Kalakuta (Swahili for "rascal") Republic, named after a prison cell he once occupiedf Fela's face-offs with the government turned violent on several occasions; military raids of Kalakuta in 1974 and 1977 destroyed the compound, brutalized its inhabitants, and left Fela hospitalized and imprisoned. An alleged currency-smuggling violation while trying to board a plane for his 1984 American tour led to his arrest and imprisonment for over eighteen months.

Despite such attacks, Fela remained undeterred in spreading his music and message. He recorded more than seventy albums and delivered several electrifying performances a week at his nightclub in Lagos, the Afrika Shrine. It was not only the hottest club with the funkiest music in Africa, but a place of political empowerment and spiritual uplift where the Yoruba Orisha (gods) and heroes of the African diaspora such as Malcolm X, Kwame Nkrumah, and Fela's mother, Olufunmilayo Ransome-Kuti, the leader of the Nigerian national and feminist movements, were venerated.

At the height of his popularity in the mid-1970s, Fela took to calling himself the "Black President," a moniker worthy of his pan-African appeal and political ambitions. When he passed away at the age of fifty-eight following a prolonged battle with AIDS, more than a million people attended his processional funeral through the streets of Lagos. Fela has since achieved an iconic status that situates him alongside such counter-cultural figures as Bob Marley and Che Guevara. His music has been sampled, covered, and paid tribute to by an unbelievable array of artists and he is cherished by musicians from Paul McCartney to Mos Def. Despite the controversies surrounding him, no one can deny his bravery in the face of government brutality or the fact that he created some of the best dance music ever recorded. Today Fela's legacy is both sobering and inspirational, but his life and struggles are as relevant as ever.

Black President: The Art and Legacy of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti is a critical multimedia exploration of the life and legacy of Fela, and the first museum exhibition of its kind. Along with largely new work from thirty-four contemporary visual artists, it includes documentary photography and video, and an extensive exploration in sound of Fela's musical history and legacy. The artists' personal investigations speak to the world in which Fela lived and to the many sides of his personality-political dissident, nativist spiritualist, unabashed sex symbol, husband to twenty-eight women, utopian visionary, and musical pioneer.

This exhibition was curated by Trevor Schoonmaker for the New Museum. The Art and Legacy of Fela Anikulapo Kuti has been provided by Etant Donnés: The French-American Fund for Contemporary Art, the The Greenwall Foundation, the Toby Devan Lewis Fund for Exhibitions of Emerging Artists, the British Council, and members of the New Group. The catalogue for the exhibition is supported in part by the Norton Family Foundation.Support for the exhibition is also provided by Altoids, The Curiously Strong Mints.


BIODATA
Fela Anikulapo Kuti /fe'læ ænɪku'læpo 'kutɪ/ (15 October 1938–2 August 1997), or simply Fela /fe'læ/, was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, pioneer of afrobeat music, human rights activist, and political maverick.

He was born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria 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. His brothers, Dr. 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 style of music that he would later call afrobeat. The style was a fusion of African jazz and funk with West African highlife. 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 Dr. Victor Olaiya and his All Stars. 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 US 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.

Fela and his band, renamed Africa '70, returned to Nigeria. 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"),stating that his original middle name of Ransome was a slave name. The recordings continued, and the music became more politically motivated. Fela's music became very popular among the Nigerian public and Africans in general. 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.

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.
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.

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." 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 & 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 P.W. 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.


Music


The musical style performed by Fela Kuti is called Afrobeat, which is a fusion of jazz, funk, psychedelic rock, and traditional West African chants and rhythms. As Iwedi Ojinmah points out in his Article "Baba is Dead - Long Live Baba," Afrobeat also borrows heavily from the native "tinker pan" African-style percussion that Kuti acquired while studying in Ghana with Hugh Masakela, under the uncanny Hedzoleh Soundz. Afrobeat is also characterized by having vocals, and musical structure, along with jazzy, funky horn sections. The endless groove is also used, in which a base rhythm of drums, shekere, muted guitar, and bass guitar are repeated throughout the song. Fela's main inspiration for the creation of Afrobeat was American drummer Dave Weckl, of whom Fela said "no person I had ever heard before could provide such rhythmic intensity as Dave does." His band was notable for featuring two baritone saxophones, whereas most groups were using only one of this instrument.

This is a common technique in African and African-influenced musical styles, and can be seen in funk and hip-hop. Some elements often present in Fela's music are the call-and-response within the chorus and figurative but simple lyrics. Fela's songs were almost always over 10 minutes in length, some reaching the 20- or even 30-minute marks, while some unreleased tracks would last up to 45 minutes when performed live. This was one of many reasons that his music never reached a substantial degree of popularity outside Africa. His songs were mostly sung in Nigerian pidgin, although he also performed a few songs in the Yoruba language. Fela's main instruments were the saxophone and the keyboards, but he also played the trumpet, guitar, and took the occasional drum solo. Fela refused to perform songs again after he had already recorded them, which also hindered his popularity outside Africa. Fela was known for his showmanship, and his concerts were often quite outlandish and wild. He referred to his stage act as the Underground Spiritual Game. Fela attempted making a movie but lost all the materials to the fire that was set to his house by the military government in power.


Political views


The American Black Power movement influenced Fela's political views. He was also a supporter of Pan-Africanism and socialism, and called for a united, democratic African republic. He was a candid supporter of human rights, and many of his songs are direct attacks against dictatorships, specifically the militaristic governments of Nigeria in the 1970s and 1980s. He was also a social commentator, and he criticized his fellow Africans (especially the upper class) for betraying traditional African culture. The African culture he believed in also included having many wives (polygyny) and the Kalakuta Republic was formed in part as a polygamist colony. He defended his stance on polygyny with the words "A man goes for many women in the first place. Like in Europe, when a man is married, when the wife is
sleeping, he goes out and fucks around. He should bring the women in the house, man, to live with him, and stop running around the streets!" His views towards women are characterised by some as misogynist, with songs like "Mattress" typically cited as evidence In a more complex example, he mocks the aspiration of African women to European standards of ladyhood while extolling the values of the market woman in his song "Lady."

It should be noted, though, that Fela was very open when it came to sex, as he portrayed in some of his songs, such as "Open and Close" and "Na Poi."
Bypassing editorial censorship in Nigeria's predominantly state controlled media, Kuti began in the 1970s buying advertising space in daily and weekly newspapers such as The Daily Times and The Punch in order to run outspoken political columns. Published throughout the 1970s and early 1980s under the title Chief Priest Say, these columns were essentially extensions of Kuti's famous Yabi Sessions—consciousness-raising word-sound rituals, with himself as chief priest, conducted at his Lagos nightclub. Organized around a militantly Afrocentric rendering of history and the essence of black beauty, Chief Priest Say focused on the role of cultural hegemony in the continuing subjugation of Africans. Kuti addressed a number of topics, from explosive denunciations of the Nigerian Government's criminal behavior; Islam and Christianity's exploitive nature, and evil multinationals; to deconstructions of Western medicine, Black Muslims, sex, pollution, and poverty. Chief Priest Say was cancelled, first by Daily Times then by Punch, ostensibly due to non-payment, but many commentators have speculated that the paper's respective editors were placed under increasingly violent pressure to stop publication.


The Fela revival


In recent years there has been a revitalization of Fela's influence on music and popular culture, culminating in a full re-release of his entire catalog, off and on Broadway biopic shows, and new bands, such as Antibalas, carrying the Afrobeat banner to a new generation of listeners.

In 2008, an off-Broadway production of Fela Kuti's life titled Fela!, began with a collaborative workshop between the Afrobeat band Antibalas and Tony award winner Bill T. Jones. The show was a massive success, selling out shows during its run, and garnering much critical acclaim. On November 22, 2009, Fela! began a run on Broadway at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre. Jim Lewis helped co-write the play (along with Bill T. Jones), and obtained producer backing from Jay-Z, Will Smith, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Stephen Hendel, and Stephen Semlitz. The show received rave reviews from the New York Times, saying that the musical "[Fela!] doesn't so much tell a story as soak an audience to and through the skin with the musical style and sensibility practiced by its leading man." Sahr Ngaujah was cast as the magnetic lead role, and Antibalas continues to provide the music, taking on the role of the Nigera 70.

On August 18th 2009 Award Winning DJ J. Period released a mix tape for free to the general public via his website jperiod.com that was a collaboration with Somali-born hip hop artist K'naan paying tribute to Fela, Bob Marley & Bob Dylan entitled, "The Messengers".

In October 2009, Knitting Factory Records began the process of re-releasing the entire catalog, starting with a best of compilation, Best of the Black President. The rest of Kuti's canon is expected to be released in 2010.
In addition, a movie by Focus Features, directed by Steve McQueen and written by Biyi Bandele about the life of Fela Kuti is slated to be filmed in 2010.

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POST SCRIPT

During his lifetime, Fela, apart from being a world renowned musician was also a political activist and for this he was arrested for more than 200 times as he fought fearlessly through his music against the tyranny and corruption of the Nigerian government. He shared with the famous legal luminary Gani Fawehinmi, the highest record of imprisonments without a recourse or regard to normal judiciary process (record that befit a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.
His history of brutality suffered from the Nigerian Government is a tragic moving picture of the high level of oppression and brutal use of naked power by all average African rulers. This article apart from the entertainment angle (of the story), is aimed at the true story of man here on earth –That you can take a man, wound him and eventually liquidate him-The dream Lives on.
Today, most African tyrannical leaders died in infamy and their memory is a scarring folktale to scare errant kids all over African; But icons like Fela has stood and withstand the test of time. This is a poser to all the youths in our generation and to all the remaining tyrants; That someone is watching and someone will surely remember one day- History never forget nor forgive.

Collated and Adapted by Shola Adebowale

COURTESY; New York Times, JON PARELES,Published: November 19, 2009Anikulapo Kuti .Steven Roberts/ MTV BLOGS/Nov 24 2009 12:04 PM EST.Baz Bamigboye, 19th March 2010 1:38 AM . Sahararepporters/Saturday, 17 April 2010 19:19. Wikipedia ,Photos ;David Corio/Redferns, via Getty Images, BWW HI-RES PHOTO GALLERY. Monique Carbon / AP

LEGEND
Pix 2/ Legend: Nigerian star Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Pix 3/Bill T.Jones,CEo-Arnie Zane DanceCompany. Pix 4, 5, 8, 9/ Stage star: Sahr Ngaujah in Fela! ,Pix 6/, showing from left, Lemi Ghariokwu, Stephen Hendel and Abike Dabiri, after the show, Pix 7/ Star couple: Jay-Z with wife Beyonce.;PIX- 9. Shows;SAHR NGAUJAH,THE QUEENS OF FELA!, SAYGBLOH,The Fela! On Broadway band.(Pix -11, shows); the real-life Mr. Kuti in London in 1983. (Pix 12, shows); Mr. Kuti in a portrait with his musical group Africa ’70 in 1970. Pix 14, The African shrine. Pix-16, AIMEE GRAHAM WODOBODE AND ELASEA DOUGLAS (Member of the Broad way Fela! Band). Pix-17,LAUREN DE VEAUX(Fela! Broadway member).