Fela Kuti: S&D

Sorrow, Tears & Blood

Authority Stealing - classic railing against those in powers, with horns packing the heaviest punch I've ever heard.

Water No Get Enemy - a bit of a sweeter melody

Coffin For Head of State - a little slower but just as weighty

Look & Laugh - from the early 80's and so not classic period but a brilliant groove and sizzling stuff on top.

I've yet to hear an actual bad Fela record, not so taken with Army Arrangement though

although who are we kidding he has a zillion great records

"Gentleman" is my fav fela

What about that DVD that comes packaged with 2 CDs? I think I already have the CDs.

The CDs (of the albums, 2 for 1) are on offer relatively cheap in Oxford Street HMV, about 8.99, I think.

I saw Fela live in 1990 at Universal Amphitheater in L.A. Anybody else here ever see him live? I saw King Sunny Ade that same summer, at Kilimanjaro in NYC. The summer of 1990 was the best summer of my life, I think. So many great shows that year.

Stoned megalomania personality? This is blasphemy. That one is the only Fela release I find really boring.

"Let's Start" is relatively short (unusual for a Fela song), but offers almost all of the dynamics of his longer compositions (except for the female backup singers). There is a nice keyboard solo, and Fela's passionate vocal is answered brilliantly by the horn section. Hoyaho! Pick a berry! Or whatever he's saying... You can get this great song on eMusic.

I would second the recommendation of "Look and Laugh", which revisits the murder of Fela's mother by the Nigerian military. Very powerful.

I have seen Fela twice in concert, and more recently saw his son Femi Kuti. Fela shows were almost as interesting for the audience they drew as the music and dance that were performed on stage (by as many as 30 musicians and singers). Many expatriate Africans were drawn to these shows, which would give you a larger sense of the African population in your city (in my case, Atlanta). At one show, Fela was being heckled by an audience member who disagreed with Fela's criticisms of Nigerian politics. Fela asked the audience member why, if he were so fond of Nigeria, did he live in Atlanta instead of Lagos? That shut the heckler right up. Fela had an incredible stage presence; for someone so physically small, he was muscular, sexy, and supremely intelligent. Like an African Iggy Pop.

...except muscular, sexy, and intelligent.

I've loved the Zombie LP and the Expensive Shit LP. Can someone give me 5 or so more LPs I should definitely check out?

Well, I'm not versed at all in his discography, so this isn't definitive, but I did enjoy listening to Noise For Vendor Mouth recently. That's one of those 1 track on each side of the record releases tho.

JJD for awesome full on, Unknown Soldier for hypnotic riffing

Gentleman is second in my book after Expensive Shit

the one with Ginger Baker is also pretty stunning.

it's really hard to go wrong. do you have the two-fers?

shuffering and shmiling/no agreement is unbelievably great and probably my favorite fela.
confusion/gentlemen
original suffer head/i.t.t.
opposite people/sorrow tears and blood

oh you said LPs. i guess that's 8 then, and there's so much more. i love fela.

shuffering and shmiling is a must-have tho

Roforofo Fight first, last and always.

lady/shakara is great - lady's so good that it makes shakara sound a little generic (still great, just not different from the other stuff). almost got a hi-records feel to some of the horns.

Coffin for Head of State is a nice meditative jam with cool call and response chanting. My favorite of late.

Alright, Matt P. I'm gonna check out those 4 to start. I've already heard a bunch about most of them.

Does anybody remember the Fela track where he asks the audience to close their eyes and imagine being somewhere else? It happens maybe 8 minutes into a track. I think it's on 'Best Best' anthology. I left my Fela CDs in another continent.

At what point did Western music press/industry start canonizing Fela Kuti? I understand that he was a huge deal among African listeners almost immediately, but when did his music start to travel? I'm especially curious because this seems to be a rarer phenomenon. I don't hear a lot of critical traction about populist Indian artists, or Persian artists, etc.

Also: If I really love Fela Kuti, what else should I check out? Is there a good boxset somewhere of similarly charged African political music?

I think Paul McCartney was a pretty early vocal fan (mid 70s maybe?).

At what point did Western music press/industry start canonizing Fela Kuti? I understand that he was a huge deal among African listeners almost immediately, but when did his music start to travel? I'm especially curious because this seems to be a rarer phenomenon. I don't hear a lot of critical traction about populist Indian artists, or Persian artists, etc.

He toured Europe & the U.S. a lot. Well-booked tours are the difference between an artist getting known and an artist going down to total obscurity, and Fela worked his ass off through the eighties. Nusrat also toured, and he's a more-known name than any other qawaali singer (I've heard others but couldn't name them). Earlier on, Ravi Shankar became a "household" name relatively speaking to other Indian classical musicians. It's a very industry thing to contend that touring is the #1 most important factor in establishing oneself, but it's pretty much true I think

these days I think my favorite Fela track is "Roforofo Fight."

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Tuesday, April 5, 2005 12:36 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark

When Paul Simon made Graceland was African music already at high currency in American pop? I know that's considered a seminal album, but for what exactly? (Basically I'm starting doing some work on African influence in American music and I'm trying to figure out where to begin. I've read a bunch of books on African music, but not on how it travelled/travels.) If someone were to explain Vampire Weekend, where would be the best place to begin?

When Paul Simon made Graceland was African music already at high currency in American pop?

Not really. There had been brief flurries and/or novelty hits like Miriam Makeba's "Pata Pata" or Hugh Masekela's "Grazin' In The Grass" (a massive hit, btw) and "Up, Up And Away," and in the early '80s ('82-3-4) Island Records tried without success to turn King Sunny Ade into Bob Marley. Fela had his moment in the late '70s through the mid '80s (I remember reading a review of a Fela concert in Rolling Stone in about 1986, and I think they also reviewed his album Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense, which came out on Polydor that year, because that was the first one I bought and where the hell else would I have heard of it in junior high?). But was African music infiltrating U.S. pop in any serious way? No.

xpost haha, where to begin!
anyway, i know that King Sunny Ade's Juju Music (1982-ish?) was a relatively big international hit ...

similarly charged African political music?

def search Thomas Mapfumo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-mw9U5Fq4g

I downloaded most of his discog with a free emusic trial.

I know that I basically got into Fela through WKCR (Columbia radio) - there were these two fantastic rare funk and soul shows - Across 110th St. and Night Train that became a big thing for me and my friends in college, like we'd have parties based on the radio show - I guess this was around '99? There were a few DJ's who I think were somehow connected to Desco Records (which iirc sort of morphed into Daptone). They'd actually play all this Desco shit and at first we all thought they were old rare singles from the 60s and 70s - Sharon Jones hadn't gotten big yet and it was still kind of a gag/novelty that they were making new records that sounded like old ones.

Anyway, the guys from Antibalas were involved in Desco too and they started first as a band called the Daktaris, and they had this Nigerian singer who apparently had taught them a lot about afrobeat. And I think Antibalas's touring and getting big had a lot to do with the resurgence in Fela.

And those shows played a lot of Fela, which is the ultimate point. I used to tape the shows and play them until they wore out pretty much.

antibalas started out as the daktaris? i totally didn't know that - have an old daktaris album and it is a tonne of fun...

It was a significant portion of the band anyway. At this point I don't know how much turnover there's been.

I think there's only one Daktaris album, but if I remember correctly it was basically the same musicians on all the Desco records playing under a bunch of different names. All of this seemed very mindblowing at the time when I found it out, since 1) I thought this label was reissuing stuff, and 2) I thought the Daktaris were an actual african band.

There's a track called Elstuhg Ibal Lasiti - "It Is All a Big Hustle" backwards

hahaha oh dear... i do fear i have been hoodwinked! they do an ace version of give it up turn it loose, and also fela's upside down...

Fela Kuti's music is pretty killer. I can't believe I didn't really hear much until a few months ago. I've now gotten a half dozen through emusic and kind of like classic James Brown records, there isn't anything that doesn't groove like hell.

I wonder how much Miles Davis knew about Fela? After hearing this stuff, I can definitely hear a similar tangent on the early 70s Miles bands when he started layering in the percussion.

Expensive Shit
Gentleman
Everything Scatter
He Miss Road
Zombie
Live w/Ginger Baker

Shuffering & Shmiling
No Agreement (srsly earlnash, play Dog Eat Dog)
Sorrow Tears + Blood

I've listened to water get no enemy like 10 times since I've woke up

my favourite of the albums of his i've heard.

All of his albums are on Bandcamp. It's a good day to fill in the gaps in your collection, as they are donating 100% proceeds to ACLU. Fela knew a thing or two about fighting for freedom and rights. He was repeatedly beaten and imprisoned by the corrupt military dictatorship in Nigeria throughout the 70s and 80s. They burned his house down. They murdered his mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, a prominent feminist activist in the anti-colonial movement. Yet he never stopped.

https://felakuti.bandcamp.com/

This is such a fantastic clip start to finish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts71SxdUnLI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ops4V7S9tsc

Fela on tour in Europe 1981 doc