Live in Detroit 1986

by Fela Kuti & Egypt 80

This double-disc album contains recordings from Fela Kuti's concert at the Fox Theatre in Detroit in 1986.  Each disc in this set contains two tracks, with running times between twenty-nine and forty minutes.

Fela arrived in America after serving two years in prison in Nigeria on trumped up charges.  His release was partly due to the fact that Amnesty International took up his cause, and then brought him on tour to the US.  Her performed at the Fox with something like twenty-three people in his band, and it sounds like it was one incredible concert.

I don't know if the concert extended beyond these four songs - these alone account for almost two and a half hours worth of music - and I have to say it must have been incredible to watch the band perform these four tracks.  Fela has masterful control over his band (giving various musicians long solos) and his audience, engaging them in call-and-response while lecturing them on topics such as how African speak with 'whole mouth', and how things in Nigeria can happen 'Just Like That'.

It's hard to imagine contemporary concert goers sticking around for forty-minute tracks; I think it would be more likely to see a twenty-minute medley of snippets of each of his biggest and best-known songs, which would also be amazing to hear, but would lack some of the authenticity of these recordings.

This is an essential album for fans of Afrobeat, Fela, or just good music.

Original Suffer Head/I.T.T. (International Thief Thief)

by Fela Anikulapo Kuti and the Egypt 80

I can't get enough of these Knitting Factory re-releases of old Fela Kuti albums.  There are like twenty-five of these things, each holding two separate records from back in the day, and I want them all.


This CD contains 'Original Suffer Head', a twenty-one minute opus wherein Fela rails against the problems of Nigeria in 1981.  What amazes me is that his list of issues (water, housing, money, electricity, food, and development) applies as much today as it did back then.  I am always impressed with the way that Fela could take a serious, solemn issue (or issues), and turn it into a danceable piece of music.

The B-side to that piece is 'Power Show', which talks about the behaviour of the rich, who feel the necessity of lording themselves over the poor.  Again, were this song being sung as part of the Occupy movement, it wouldn't be out of place.

Also on this disc is I.T.T. (International Thief Thief), a twenty-four minute attack on International Telephone and Telegraph, and its CEO Moshood Abiola, who also owned the record label that Fela was feuding with at the time.  From the liner notes that explain this song:

Fela takes this opportunity to publicly disgrace Abiola for, in Fela's eyes, becoming a stooge for the white man through his general colonial mentality, and specifically for his collusion in the CIA-led effort to dislocate Chile's democratically elected Marxist president Allende.  The lyrics also include a pointed history lesson outlining the way, in the days of slavery, the white man would find a willing African who would sell his own people into slavery.

You have to love an artist who would take such risks and push his agenda so strongly, and so popularly.  I wish we had some equivalents to Fela today...

Shuffering and Shmiling / No Agreement

by Fela Anikulapo Kuti and the Afrika 70

I love the Knitting Factory re-releases of classic Fela Kuti albums.  They combine two LPs onto a single CD, and reproduce the original album covers, front and back, with a paper insert that explains a little about the different tracks and the circumstances around their writing and recording.

This particular CD contains Shuffering and Shmiling & No Agreement,which were originally released in 1978 and 1977, respectively.  'Shuffering and Shmiling' is a twenty-one minute song (originally split between the two sides of the record), wherein Fela decides to spare his usual targets, the government and the army, and instead attack Christianity and Islam, which he saw as social imports brought from colonial masters.  He was opposed to the notion of suffering through life on Earth to achieve heavenly rewards.  What makes this work as a message is the catchiness of his rhythm, making his words more palpable.

'No Agreement' could be an anthem for the Occupy Movement, with it's call and response repeating of the phrase "No agreement today, no agreement tomorrow."  Fela was not known for a willingness to compromise with anyone or anything, especially the poor social conditions of Nigeria in the late 70s.  It's a fantastic track, clocking in at fifteen minutes.  This is the same length as the third piece on this disc, 'Dog Eat Dog', which is a lovely instrumental track.

There are a large number of albums in this series, but I really do feel the need to try to collect them all...

Expensive Shit / He Miss Road

by Fela Ransome Kuti & Africa 70

It's really only recently that I've come to discover that Knitting Factory Records has reissued so many of Fela Kuti's records in the last two years.  Faced with a plethora of choices at an HMV a little while ago, I thought I'd go for the one with the funny title and the topless girls on the cover - you usually can't go wrong...

This disc contains two albums that Fela and his band originally released in 1975.  Expensive Shit was Fela's response to a police raid during which he swallowed a joint that the police planted on him.  Later, they tested his feces for evidence of marijuana, but weren't able to press charges for it.  That album also contains the song 'Water Get No Enemy', based on a Yourban proverb. The second album, He Miss Road, contains three tracks, including the seventeen minute 'Its No Possible'.

Both of these albums are prime examples of Fela's approach to Afrobeat, and they are terrific.  I am not sure how many of these reissues, which duplicate the front and back artwork for both albums they contain, there are, or what it will cost me to collect a complete set, but I think I know what I'm going to be hunting for in any number of cd shops from here on out.

Fela Ransome Kuti and The Africa 70 with Ginger Baker Live!

by Fela Kuti, the Africa 70, and Ginger Baker

What a great album.  This five-track disk has four songs that were recorded live in 1971, featuring Fela, his Africa 70 band, and Ginger Baker, a drummer best known for his work with Cream and Blind Faith.  There is also a fifth track, which is a sixteen minute live recording of Ginger Baker playing with Tony Allen at the Berlin Jazz Festival in 1978.

The recordings with Kuti are incredible.  The shortest of these tracks is seven minutes, while the others hover around the twelve minute mark.  They have all the energy and sound one would expect from hearing the great man play.

These are mostly the classic tracks - 'Let's Start', 'Black Man's Cry', and 'Egbe Mi O'.  The drum solo piece that finishes off is impressive, if a little dull towards the end.

Seun Kuti + Fela's Egypt 80

by Seun Kuti and Fela's Egypt 80

As I've been listening to more and more African music, I've come to an understanding of how central Fela Kuti is to it all.  This isn't a surprise of course, as he has always been the only artist from the region I could name before the last year, but I did not know that his son is also a well-known musician and band-leader.

Seun Kuti's album is great.  It came out two years ago, and has seven tracks, clocking in at a total of fifty-three minutes.  Many of the musicians that make up 'Fela's Egypt 80' worked with Fela originally, some dating back to the earliest days of Afrobeat.

The album is politically charged, with songs like 'African Problems', 'Don't Give That Shit to Me', and 'Many Things', the album opener, discuss the issues faced by African nations today, albeit in a pidgin or creole that is sometimes hard to understand (but it's not like I'm the intended audience).

Most importantly, Seun carries forward the tradition of large, rich, big band sounds as a conduit for his message, making it danceable as well as edifying.  Great stuff.

Nigeria Afrobeat Special:

In continuing to educate myself on African music from the 1970s, I purchased this disc, which features eleven tracks from different big bands, all of whom recorded in Nigeria.

The disc starts off, appropriately enough, with a track from Fela Ransome Kuti & The Africa 70 ('Who're You?'), before moving on to other artists who imitated, and worked in, his style of music.

This compilation serves as a nice survey of the time period, as the songs all exemplify that large, lush sound that Kuti was known for.  This is a very funky recording, and it comes with some meticulously researched liner notes.

Black Man's Cry

The Inspirations of Fela Kuti

Is it too early to have a favorite cd of 2010?  I know almost nothing about Fela Kuti and his music, having only been exposed to it in the last few years by way of hip-hop artists that have sampled his work, but I have a great deal of esteem for this wonderful album compiling other peoples' covers of Fela's hits.

Egon, the funk historian emeritus and leading force behind Now-Again Records has searched far and wide for these recordings from the 70s, with three new tracks.  Represented on this disk are other Nigerian bands that covered Kuti's work, as well as Caribbean groups, and the North Americans who have led the revival in afro-funk.  Egon has written a highly-detailed essay outlining the history of the different covers, when and where it is known.  The disk comes with a small booklet bound into the cardboard cover, and the whole package is a classy, sophisticated affair.

It is the music that makes this thing great though.  The pieces here are all very funky, but they vary in their delivery and style.  There are three different versions of the title track, and I would be hard pressed to name a favorite.  I find this entire disk to be uplifting and incredibly beautiful.

The Messengers

by J. Period and K'Naan

K'Naan has always emphasized in his art his role as an agent of change. In this set of three mixtapes created with J. Period, he has engaged musically with his idols, crossing national and genre borders to bring us an interesting blend of mash-ups, tributes, new work, and his thoughts.

The first mixtape features the music of Fela Kuti, the second Bob Marley, and the third, Bob Dylan. While these three icons are known for vastly different things, K'Naan speaks to their commonality, and continued relevance to us today.

J. Period blends K'Naan's voice and lyrics into the original recordings, and uses archival recordings of the artists' interviews or conversations. The effect is one where it becomes hard to remember what the original songs sounded like in places.

Guests featured throughout the project include Kardinal Offishall, M1, Zumbi, and more. This is a project that I would gladly pay money for, but has been released for free at J. Period's website.