(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Black Music Sunday: Celebrating Fela Anikulapo-Kuti and the birth of Afrobeat [1] [] Date: 2023-10-15 On Oct. 15, 1938, Fela Kuti (full birth name Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti), later to be known as Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria. Very few musicians can be pointed to as having “birthed” a particular music genre; Fela was one of them. He is almost universally credited with having created what is known globally as “Afrobeat.” Though Fela would join the ancestors on Aug. 2, 1997, at the age of 58, his impact on music and politics would live on. ”Black Music Sunday” is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music. With 180 stories (and counting) covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new. The Fela-Kuti website is extensive, and breaks his life story down by year, opening in 1938. Olufela Olusegun Oludoton Ransome-Kuti – Fela - is born on 15 October in Abeokuta, a town fifty miles north of Lagos. His family is relatively prosperous and it is among the few in Abeokuta with a car (Fela’s mother, Olufunmilayo Ransome-Kuti, a pioneering feminist, is one of the first Nigerian women to drive one). Fela’s father, the Reverend Israel Ransome-Kuti, is the Principal of Abeokuta Grammar School. Fela’s first cousin, Wole Soyinka, later a Nobel Prize-winning writer, sometimes spends his school holidays at the Ransome-Kuti home. Fela would later attribute many of his political ideas to his mother. He would also cite Nkrumah’s dictum, “The secret of life is to have no fear” – a belief he lived by throughout his life, whatever the consequences. Both Fela’s parents actively oppose British colonial rule. On one occasion, his father is slashed on the face with a soldier’s bayonet for refusing to remove his hat while walking past the British flag flying at the local army barracks. During the 1940s, Fela’s mother had become close friends with Kwame Nkrumah, the inaugural president of Ghana. In 1960, Ghana became the first black state in Africa to free itself from British rule. His mother, educator and women’s rights activist Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, died in 1977 after being thrown out of a window by Nigerian troops raiding Fela’s compound. x The first woman to drive a car in Nigeria was Chief Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti. She was a teacher, women’s rights activist, political campaigner and traditional aristocrat. She is the mother to Afro beat creator Fela Kuti pic.twitter.com/fItT1uh4p0 — Nigeria Stories (@NigeriaStories) June 9, 2020 Biography.com covers his beginnings in music: As a child, Kuti learned piano and drums and led his school choir. In the 1950s, Kuti told his parents that he was moving to London, England, to study medicine, but wound up attending the Trinity College of Music instead. While at Trinity, Kuti studied classical music and developed an awareness of American jazz. ... In 1963, Kuti formed a band called Koola Lobitos. He would later change the band's name to Afrika 70, and again to Egypt 80. Beginning in the 1960s, Kuti pioneered and popularized his own unique style of music called "Afrobeat." Afrobeat is a combination of funk, jazz, salsa, Calypso and traditional Nigerian Yoruba music. In addition to their distinctive mixed-genre style, Kuti's songs were considered unique in comparison to more commercially popular songs due to their length—ranging anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour long. Kuti sang in a combination of Pidgin English and Yoruba. In the 1970s and '80s, Kuti's rebellious song lyrics established him as political dissident. As a result, Afrobeat has come to be associated with making political, social and cultural statements about greed and corruption. One of Kuti's songs, "Zombie," questions Nigerian soldiers' blind obedience to carrying out orders. Another, "V.I.P. (Vagabonds in Power)," seeks to empower the disenfranchised masses to rise up against the government. A wonderful introduction to Fela and his music is this 52-minute documentary,”Fela Kuti: Music Is the Weapon,” shot in 1982. x YouTube Video As the video notes: Fela Kuti is to African music what Bob Marley is to reggae: its prophet. All contemporary forms of black music, from funk to electronic, owe something to the irresistible groove of the Afrobeat sound that he created. He recorded more than 60 albums and spent a lifetime fighting against political corruption in his homeland of Nigeria, where the people affectionately called him their "Black President."Shot in Lagos at the peak of his career in 1982, this documentary contains interviews with Fela detailing his thoughts on politics, Pan-Africanism, music and religion, alongside unpublished versions of songs like ITT, Army Arrangement and Power Show. x Nigerian artist, Fela Kuti, pioneered the genre of Afro-beat. He was imprisoned for speaking out against Nigerian president. Tracks such as “Zombie” directly called out the Nigerian military of the late 1970s. pic.twitter.com/0gjbcA3Nll — NYPL_Music (@nyplmusic) October 4, 2023 Here is “Zombie.” x YouTube Video If you’d like to do some reading about Fela, I suggest you start with Carlos Moore’s biography. x Everyone should read this book, it’s a story about the legend: Fela Kuti. pic.twitter.com/ugYH3Drfm5 — Adémólá (@OgbeniDemola) October 5, 2023 Motswana writer, Lauri Kubuitsile reviewed “Fela: This Bitch of a Life.” Fela Kuti is undoubtedly one of Africa’s best musicians ever. Fela This Bitch of a Life: The Authorized Biography of Africa’s Musical Genius by Carlos Moore re-published by African Perspectives is as interesting and eclectic a book as was the man it is about. The book was first published in France in 1982, this new edition came out this year with a forward from Gilberto Gil, a note from the author, additional chapters at the end about the last years of Fela’s life from 1982 to his death in 1997, and an introduction from Margaret Busby. The book is unique in that though it is a biography, it was written from hours of direct interviews between Moore and Fela. Some chapters are written as transcripts of those interviews, in Fela’s voice and in the first person. This is also the case with the handful of Fela’s wives, or queens as they are described in the book, and close friends such as J.K. Braimah and Sandra Smith. This sort of format I found very intriguing and gives the book an authenticity as a near autobiography that other books on Fela could not have. More recent is the biography “Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon,” by Yale professor and ethnomusicologist Michael E. Veal: In Africa, the idea of transnational alliance, once thought to be outmoded, has gained new currency. In African-America, during a period of increasing social conservatism and ethnic polarization, Africa has re-emerged as a symbol of cultural affirmation. At such a historical moment, Fela's music offers a perspective on race, class, and nation on both sides of the Atlantic. As Professor Veal demonstrates, over three decades Fela synthesized a unique musical language while also clearing, if only temporarily, a space for popular political dissent and a type of counter-cultural expression rarely seen in West Africa. In the midst of political turmoil in Africa, as well as renewal of pro-African cultural nationalism throughout the diaspora, Fela's political music functions as a post-colonial art form that uses cross-cultural exchange to voice a unique and powerful African essentialism. In 2008, the musical “Fela” opened off Broadway, and then premiered on Broadway in 2009: x YouTube Video FELA! is a new musical that is directed and choreographed by Tony Award winner Bill T. Jones with a book by Jim Lewis, in which audiences are welcomed into the extravagant, decadent and rebellious world of Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti. Using his pioneering music (a blend of jazz, funk and African rhythm and harmonies), FELA! explores Kuti's controversial life as artist, political activist and revolutionary musician. Featuring many of Fela Kuti's most captivating songs and Bill T. Jones' imaginative staging, this new show is a provocative hybrid of concert, dance and musical theater. Musician and music journalist Ahmir K. Thompson, known as Questlove, weighs in on Fela’s life, music, and influence on today’s hip-hop in the following video. Thompson was also an associate producer on the Fela musical: x YouTube Video x “I realized that you cannot think European and want to write or create something African. You have to think African in everything." 🌍 📸 Godwin Usidamen pic.twitter.com/ZBgPfQISEu — Fela Kuti (@felakuti) August 23, 2023 For me, the power of Fela is not only hearing his music, but seeing him perform live. I’ll close today’s story with two of his live concerts: x YouTube Video x YouTube Video Fela’s music lives on. Here is his son Femi Kuti paying tribute to his father, streamed live on Oct. 8. 2022 from Paris: x YouTube Video As translated from the French video notes: As a worthy heir of his father who died in 1997, Femi Kuti continues to carry high the flame of Afrobeat, a music which constantly navigates between jazz and African rhythms, but also between sensuality, self-abandonment and diatribes full of the rage of revolt. Enough to make our man one of the greatest ambassadors of the current Nigerian scene. Happy birthday, Fela! Join me in the comments section below for more, and please post your favorite Afrobeat tunes. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/15/2197807/-Black-Music-Sunday-Celebrating-Fela-Anikulapo-Kuti-and-the-birth-of-Afrobeat?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_10&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/