Fela Kuti

now that that's out of our systems, what's everyones favorite fela piece/alb (and no..."I can't choose...they're all so grate!" bullshit)...

mine is "shakara."

Anyone check out any of the recent afrobeat comps? "Afrorock" sounds really interesting, the guy who compiled it spent years travelling around Africa finding original stuff.

(Although I think I'm still more annoyed that I missed seeing a free Grupo Niche concert because I didn't know when they were coming on.)

dancing alone to Fela in living room = only known cure for depression

temp cure OK but any port in a storm

>dancing alone to Fela in living room = only known cure for depression

You could also try dancing to Ornette Coleman's early Atlantic recordings, esp. This Is Our Music and "Ramblin'" from Change Of The Century. But I hear ya.

Worth noting: the Spanish label Vampisoul has just released a 2CD compilation of Tony Allen's first four solo albums, and the first three (Jealousy, Progress and No Accomodation For Lagos) feature Afrika 70 as the backing band, including Fela on sax.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/theater/06fela.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Fela! the off-broadway musical opening in NYC Sept. 4th

Hmmmmmmm....

as long as it has an "!" it should be good

The Most Happy Fela in the Whole Niger Delta

apparently Fela, Soyinka, Obasanjo and Moshood Abiola all come from the same town

finally got "music of many colors" (the roy ayers collaboration) and it far exceeds expectations. i had expected something along the lines of "africa centre of the world", instead i get dubby uptempo spaced-out afro-disco in the vein of tony allen's "NEPA dub". this is tremendous.

still think "coffin for head of state" is the best. shows off his tremendous grooves (second only to ITT or shuffering and shmiling in my mind), his wicked sarcasm ("alluahakbarablahblahblahblah ... wokka wokka wokka"), his righteous anger (they killed his mom!) all in the same track.

otm

I came to this thread wanting to write "Coffin For Head Of State" yes yes yes yes yes yes. I have become enthralled by Fela in the past month. not before time.

Can someone recommend the early "L.A. sessions" CD?

dancing alone to Fela in living room = only known cure for depression

This close to OTMing, but on second thought it's Ayler's New Grass for me--big fun slapping you on the ass.

Though on the other hand, tragically, I'm only familiar with Confusion/Gentleman.

tim you must hear "2000 black" (roy ayers w/ fela + afrika 70)

exact title is "2000 Blacks Got To Be Free"

^^yes!

also "mr. grammarticologylisationalism is the boss"
lord it's good

http://www.studio360.org/episodes/2008/12/19

Bill T. Jones, the choreographer/director of Fela!, talks about the show and Fela on the radio program Studio 360. It appears the show may run in London shortly and then come back to NYC for a longer run if they can get financing.

!!!
http://www.voanews.com/english/africa/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=8DC92121-9F33-ED7A-D547329B08561449

Did anyone see this Yale Prof talk on Monday April 20th at Harvard (Wayne Marshall highlighted this at his Wayne and Wax site)?

Michael Veal, professor of ethnomusicology at Yale, bassist, and the author of two interesting and informed books, Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon and Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae* is delivering a lecture at Harvard this afternoon called “Technotopia 1969.”

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/news/bal-fela-jay-z-1117,0,4543991.story

NEW YORK - It's official: After weeks of speculation, Jay-Z and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith have joined the producing team of the Broadway musical "Fela!"

Jay-Z told The Associated Press last month that he might be getting involved in the show, an Afrobeat musical about the life of the late Nigerian musical legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Now producers say he and the Smiths are in, though there's no word on how much of a financial investment the three have made in the show.

"Fela!" is now in previews at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre and opens next Monday. It's directed and choreographed by Bill T. Jones.

Is Will Smith going to play Fela in the inevitable biopic? With CGI Jada as his 30 wives?

it'd be really funny if "fela: the musical" had all its songs written in the broadway musical idiom.

Andrew Lloyd Weber's Fela!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/theater/22fela.html?_r=1

Lotsa details in this Pareles article on the Broadway show plus the impending cd and vinyl reissues and Antibalas stuff

Knitting Factory Records has issued “The Best of the Black President,” a two-CD anthology of Fela’s music packaged with a documentary DVD. The label plans to release all of Fela’s nearly four dozen albums on CD and LP, including some that never appeared on vinyl in the United States.

fwiw, C and D on Fela The Musical (off-Broadway verz) from Arthur No. 31/Oct 2008:

http://www.arthurmag.com/2008/10/16/c-d-from-arthur-no-31/

anyone know what the forthcoming stones throw fela album is all about?

saw the musical this weekend--really incredible

antibalas is shit-hot, too

expensive shit-hot

suspicious but curious about the musical...

i look forward to future volumes of the Nigeria Special series.

anyone hear that "black man cry - influences of Fela" comp? interesting...

yeah, if you can get past the inevitable uncomfortable feeling about watching a several-hundred-thousand-dollar music with hundreds of well-heeled new yorkers its really, really worth it

Are there any cheaper tickets available day of the show at those 2 Ticket Booths? Would like to get up to NY from DC to see it.

i dunno--i am not really a theater-goer; my dad got the tickets

Ha. When tourist me is in NY I just show up and look on the boards posted at the Times Square and/or South Street Seaport locations, but maybe they also post the availability of the half-price or 25% off or whatever tickets online every morning also. The theatres want to fill the seats so each day they determine how many full-price tickets have sold, and then how many to sell cheaper. But maybe you know that. Not really a theater-goer either, but want to see this and "In the Heights" (the show with the uptown NYC Latin music)

"See the FELA! matinee this Wednesday at a special price.

Wednesday Matinees
$52 (reg. $99)

Now thru 02/28/10
$67 (reg. $110-$120)

Use Code FE4FANS
Best Available Seats!"

Fela is one of those artists who sometimes I think how incredibly my life changed when I first heard him and the general overall splendor of music is reawakened for me

fuck yeah, Fela

anyone hear that "black man cry - influences of Fela" comp? interesting...

Yeah, I reviewed it for The Wire along with the two new Nigeria Special comps. I didn't like it much - the old material was solid but the new stuff at the end really jarred.

xpost: just read that very review earlier today, and thought how so few tracks on these afrobeat comps of late reward me as much as Fela.

Bill T. Jones just won a Tony Award for best choreography for the Broadway show Fela. I wonder if they had a scene from the show on the Tonys (I've been watching more of the Basketball Final between Boston and L.A.)

given i saw antibalas a week ago (for free in chicago) and had one of those 'wtf !?!' moments, i need a starting block.
which one ?
a compilation, or head straight into the albums proper ?

This is great if you can find it (I guess it's out of print now). A two-disc best-of paired with a DVD containing a documentary filmed in about 1982 in Nigeria. There are two versions of the documentary, both included on the DVD - one in English and one in French, and each contains footage not found in the other, so it's worth it to watch both.

The 2-fer of 'Expensive Shit" & 'He Miss Road' is devastatingly good.

improvspirit speaks the truth. then follow that up with the live with ginger baker lp.

Saw The Musical! last night. Hugely entertaining. Story was thinly presented and verging on hagiography but music, not narrative, was the crucial element, and the songs sounded amazing.

I wanna go up to NYC and see this before it closes.

The label plans to release all of Fela’s nearly four dozen albums on CD and LP, including some that never appeared on vinyl in the United States.

The first batch of these is out next week:

http://www.amazon.com/Vinyl-Box-Set-Curated-uestlove/dp/B0046I8MA2
Knitting Factory Records is proud to release the first of the long-awaited vinyl reissues from the Fela Kuti catalog. This is the first in a series of curated vinyl box sets. The box includes six Fela Kuti albums that were handpicked by ?uestlove of The ROOTS. The artwork for each album is painstakingly recreated original album artwork along with vintage vinyl label artwork. What’s more is that this release marks the first time that some of these Fela Kuti albums have been released on vinyl domestically.

The box includes the albums:
Everything Scatter (1975)
Expensive Shit (1975)
Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense (1986)
Beasts Of No Nation (1989)
Fear Not For Man (1977)
Sorrow Tears And Blood (1977)

awesome! been waiting forever for this to get off the ground. but...

bummed that they're gonna be box sets. means significant cash outlay that poor-ass me really can't afford, shouldn't be considering. and bummed that they're not just gonna be sequential. would make a whole lot more sense that way, allow for comprehensive liner notes devoted to the phases of his life and music that you could read while listening to the relevant albums.

looking a gift horse in the mouth over here

i picked up expensive shit from the 2nd hand record store last wkend! it's awesome (obv)

That's cool news bing. and $80 is not a bad price for 6 LPs

true but what the hell with the scattershot non-sequential approach, bad move imo.

*hoping the next boxset will have No Agreement and He Miss Road*

Also year-ago j0hn otm

Expensive Shit/He Miss Road and Open & Close/Afrodisiac are probably my favorite twofers

But Shakara/London Scene and Confusion/Gentleman are also great. The jam at the beginning of Confusion is FIRE.

The artwork for each album is painstakingly recreated original album artwork along with vintage vinyl label artwork.

I dunno. I haven't ever seen the original album covers as they are hard to find, but I'd like to know what was so painstaking in creating the orginal covers. Expensive Shit looks like it is a very bad photocopy reproduction. The text is kinda fuzzy and maybe out of focus (if I'm looking at it right). Almost like the original image used was a 400x400 pixel blown up larger for the lp. Maybe someone with the original album can shed some input on this album's cover? The others look okay, I guess. Just a minor picking on my part.

Not sure how these are sourced either. But they sound pretty good.

i essentially know nothing about fela but i've been listening to that "the best of the black president" comp a lot lately. my default answer to the "favorite album" question has for years been remain in light, so this is simultaneously an "oh that's what they were ripping off" moment and a "oh amazing, hours and hours of this stuff" moment.

<3 you dlh, remain in light was my #1 for years until i finally overplayed it. If you're a fela neophyte like u say I would suggest watching "Music Is The Weapon" immediately.

Also this box set news is awesome! was starting to wonder if this project stalled out.

I think if you want to know what Remain in Light is ripping off, you also need to check out Manu Dibango and King Sunny Ade. (xpost)

The London version of Fela The Musical was breathtaking. Got taken to it as a birthday thing.Can't believe the endless energy poured into it. God those people are fit, speshly the ladees.

Have that Best Best of Black President 2cd & a couple of other things. Must get some more.

Listening to Zombie on Glengad beach last summer is a major musical memory of 2010

Last time I saw the Roots, maybe a month or two ago, Black Thought hinted they were taking something Fela-related out on the road. Anyone know what he was on about?

fuck this high priced box set treatment (i cant afford it either). would be happy if his old albums were just reeleased on vinyl at a reasonable price. there were a load released in the 90s - someone needs to do that again.

I was in England last week and they were selling a 27-disc box (all 43 albums on 26 CDs, plus a DVD) for 65 pounds. I almost bought one.

^yeah that would be difficult to pass up

yeah that complete recordings set looks tempting. you can get it for just about $100 via amazon marketplace sellers. i've been very close to pulling the trigger on buying it.

I've got a vinyl box set (it's number 4 in a series, but I've never seen the others) with Zombie, No Agreement, Coffin for Head of State, Kalakuta Show, Shuffering and Shmiling, and Fear Not For Man. It was a hundo, but it's gorgeous. No book or anything like that, but it came with postcards of "Fela's Beauties" in it.

the complete box sets on wrasse are a bit of a mess date-wise arent they? seem to be lots of albums from diff eras stuck together. :(

so I've listened to fela casually in the past but somebody posted a youtube on fb the other day, something about it hit me the right way and I thought "I should listen to this guy's entire discog"

so here I go

see you in a year

kinda thinking about seeing seun kuti next month -- anybody checked the show out before?

nah maybe a month or two

xp

50 albums that's nuthin

Well, most of his records are on the shortish side.

kinda thinking about seeing seun kuti next month -- anybody checked the show out before?

― tylerw, Friday, February 24, 2012

Yes. It was fun, although at times he seemed to be trying too hard to imitate his Dad(taking off his shirt and stuff)

Femi didn't even bother to come onstage in a shirt in the first place

But he does some disco-beat tracks that Seun would never do

I don't think

seun is good live, obv not as good as dad and prob not quite as good as femi but still the real deal

seun is definitely worth seeing live.. never got to see fela, so this is obviously the next best thing...

and he always opens his show with Zombie, which is killer..

listened to my first batch of fela stuff, figure I will liveblog in case anybody's interested. I'm no funk/jazz guru so don't expect sophisticated breakdowns, just my gut reactions here...

fela kuti & koola lobitos 64-68
not much of note, some good tunes but recordings are ruff and overall the songs are a bit anonymous. for the curious archivist.

fela fela fela (1969) aka the '69 los angeles sessions
taken aback by how solid this is. whatever was in the water in LA in '69 agreed with him something fierce. bitsize fela, most tracks run 3-4 minutes long. leans more toward upbeat/jazz high life style, but there are hints of the hypnotic incantatory approach he mined on later albums. if you can get a hold of the original version, fela fela fela, it's much better than the remixed one called the '69 los angeles sessions. it almost sounds as though somebody tried to remix it like a heavy funk record, when really this is silky jazz played with finesse, and it benefits from being muted + smooth rather than brash + amped up.

fela's london scene (1969)
a transitional album. longer workouts, with the polyrhythms getting pushed to the fore. unfortunately the material isn't very strong here. standout track "egbe mi o" is rendered in stronger relief on...

live! (1970)
first track "let's start" sounds like a warmup number, but after that this thing really takes off. a stuttering bassline fuels fela's howls on "black man's cry", "egbe mi o" weaves between a catchy descending vocal chant and full-on in-your-face horn hits. apparently redhead tailor, some guy from an english rock band called cream, plays on this. you'd never know, so good on him.

why the black man dey suffer (1971)
title track is ground zero for fela's sound in the 70s. amazing that he went from "my lady frustration" in '69 to this. it grooves, but in a yearning + downbeat way, a confidant, fully-realized pastiche of the styles he'd been mixing and matching for the past few years. the social consciousness angle is front and center now: 'dey took our culture away from us / gave us dem culture no one understand'. flip side is an adequate workout.

ginger baker - stratavarious (1972)
this is listed as part of fela's discog on wiki, which is good because I doubt I would've heard it otherwise. first two songs are collabs w/ fela, the second written by him. they're less musically sophisticated than what he was doing at the time with africa '70, but they're a lot more atmospheric and trippy. worth tracking down. some haunting vocal turns by sandra smith, who introduced fela to the black power movement in LA, a big impact on his aesthetic development.

good interview with sandra smith here about her time in LA w/ fela

http://blogs.laweekly.com/arts/2011/12/fela_kuti_los_angeles_sandra_i.php

love this bit

It was really exciting when he auditioned for Disneyland. I was like, "ooh, a free trip to Disneyland!" I was so excited, but at the end of the day, I was disappointed.

Disneyland told Fela that he wasn't playing African music. They wanted him to play in Adventureland.

They had thought he played just stereotypical African music, like what they have on the Small World ride?

They thought he was going to be something else, and they said that he wasn't playing African music at all. How do you tell an African man, playing African rhythms who had studied African music, that he is not playing African music? Crazy. So that was Disneyland.

lol wow.

Didn't know Juno Lewis was the one who introduced him. Only other mention of him I've seen is his Coltrane collaboration, "Kulu Se Mama."

him = them

I've been given as a gift (!) Vol 2 of the Wrasse records boxsets (mentioned above). It includes the following albums, mostly doubled up 2-per-CD:

Monkey Banana
Excuse O
Everything Scatter
Noise For Vendor Mouth
Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense
Koola Lobitos 64-68
The '69 LA Sessions
Roforofo Fight
The Fela Singles
Confusion
Gentleman
Shakara
Fela's London Scene
Expensive Shit
He Miss Road
Stalemate
Fear Not For Man

I only have a passing knowledge of Fela and am enjoying digging into this. "Expensive Shit" is on right now - wonderful.

expensive shit/he miss road are his two greatest LPs IMHO, closely followed by the Ginger Baker album

hoping E3 continues his liveblog thru Fela's discography

nascar pony 100% OTM.

I will probably stan harder for No Agreement, but I love He Miss Road and Expensive Shit lots!

nonono my name is STEVIE

and thank you

yeah I guess I should catch you guys up huh

I just dig readin about it, man

Laurie & I saw Seun a couple of weeks ago and it was really really good even though he was a bit sick from the brutal NW weather

that guy playing the shaker gourd was killin it

new Fela live album 3xCD is awesome-- not prime era material, it's all late 80s era, but still fantastic and fun

Wrasse are finally releasing the second vinyl box set in a few weeks time..

Curated by Ginger Baker, it will include...

Live With Ginger Baker (1971)
Roforofo Fight (1972)
Confusion (1974)
Alagbon Close (1974)
He Miss Road (1975)
Na Poi (1976)

looking forward to finally getting some of these on vinyl without paying stupid prices...

Ginger Baker record is killer

^^

There's this weird doc streaming on Netflix right now called Ginger Baker in Africa.

contains my three favourite fela albums - live with ginger baker, he miss road and na poi. i hope they release them separately too so i can get alagbon close.

i have the ginger baker in africa dvd. it's ok, if a little on the short side.

Confusion is such a monster

the Ginger Baker in Africa DVD is worthwhile for the Fela footage alone, but its the live snippet of Segun Bucknor's Sweet Things that makes the film for me... They must have shot loads more footage of those live performances - wonder what happened to it all...

Segun Bucknor is so under-rated...

yeah that doc is great. is that the one that has the cartoon bit of Ginger traipsing around the continent? very lol

and yeah Segun Bucknor sequence is o_0

segun bucknor is wonderful!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctyXw5qgNLo

first real pang of regret that I never ended up moving to Chicago...

So guess who's arrived on Bandcamp.

http://felakuti.bandcamp.com/

This is absolutely awesome

Otm!!!!!!!!

wow

Six individual vinyl LPs to be released on 1 September 2014

* Fela With Ginger Baker Live!
* Confusion
* Expensive Shit
* He Miss Road
* Sorrow Tears & Blood
* Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense

not going to lie, would love to have live!, he miss road and expensive shit on vinyl...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CGBu6F9UUAAA63Z.jpg

I WANT TO TELL YOU A STORY

No be story o

E no be story?

At all, very very at all.

man fela gets me so amped up i feel like i can conquer the world when i listen to him

Kind of fell down a fela youtube/spotify hole last night after discovering this beautifully shot footage of Africa 70 live --there's not much of that out there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz2jXHKa7TY

as posted by Ward Fowler on the King Sunny Adé thread:

Fela documentary on BBC2 today:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000pr2n

(starts two hours from now)

That was a fine documentary. It is now on yt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbOXDCqbPZo

yesterday it still was, sorry.

been starting to go through uh... possibly every fela record, we'll see. early verdict roforofo fight is one of the best albums i've ever heard

he has a lot of best albums ever

Trouble Sleep Yanga Wake Am is the best song I've ever heard on the best album I've ever heard

Open and Close is still my favorite but there are so many good ones. Confusion/Gentleman definitely up there for me.

I have discovered recently that "Expensive Shit" / "Water No Get Enemy" is great music for running... A side makes me go fast fast fast, B side nice and slow coming home

In general I'm not a fan of super-long intros, but I make an exception for "Confusion"

The Confusion/Gentleman twofer CD was my fave during my peak Fela obsession (I also enjoyed reading Michael Veal's book on him at that time), but everything named in the revive is great and Moodles is otm. I also loved "Lady" off of Shakara though, uh, I do not endorse the lyrics lol

"Lady" is icky but also fantastic. At random I'll sing, to myself, "She waaaaant that piece of meat before anybody."

it also inspired a great Hugh Masekela track

This is cool for the tracks with Fela that I hadn't heard before, but would be 10000000000000x better with Tony Allen instead of Ginger Baker, obviously

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37sDbvQOJ2I

That's p much how I feel about the Ginger Baker / Fela album - it would be better without Ginger Baker and just Tony Allen

Oh! forgot that I went to an artist talk last week with Lemi Ghariokwu, creator of all the iconic Fela album covers, and it was a night full of amazing anecdotes. Got to enjoy dinner with the man as well. A funny, brilliant human.

re Ginger Baker: (paraphrased) "Always passed out on a sofa with a big joint in one hand, a glass of wine in the other."

That's p much how I feel about the Ginger Baker / Fela album - it would be better without Ginger Baker and just Tony Allen

i'm no Ginger Baker apologist but that album has one of my top 5 Fela tracks - Egbe Mi O. i guess it might have been right at the top if it was just Allen drumming.

Very cool JV!

Crazy.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/apr/10/life-with-fela-kuti-dangerous-tour-roy-ayers-nigeria

Whoa

Bernard Purdie content alert!

Bernard is playing in Chicago this weekend and I don't think I can make it :(