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

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 :(