The musical genius, the inventor of an entirely new genre: the Afrobeat, the more often affibbiatogli nickname is "The Black President".
Olufela Oludotun Olusegun Ransome-Kuti was born October 15, 1938 in Nigeria, Abeokuta, in a middle class family. All the members of his family were in some way actively involved in social work: his mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was an activist of the anti colonial feminist and his father, the Reverend Israel Ransome-Kuti Oludotun, was a Protestant minister and was the first President teachers union in Nigeria, and his two brothers, Beko Ransome-Kuti and Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, were both physicians, and known throughout Nigeria and, before I forget, their cousin, Wole Soyinka became the first African man, in 1986, won the Nobel prize for literature!
certainly growing in an environment so rich in adverse political ideologies, focusing on violence and military repression, he could find fertile ground to begin its journey as a musician first and activist then.
moved to London at age 20 to study medicine, he decided soon after to join Trinity College of Music: it was taken at that time that he formed his first band, Koola Lobitos, a fusion of jazz and highlife.
In 1960 he married his first wife Remilekun, with whom he had three children (Femi, Yeni and Sola).
In the years immediately following the experience in London, there was the real turning point in the career of Fela: returned to Nigeria in 1963 reformed the Koola Lobitos, participating actively as a radio producer for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation.
In this period, during the auditions for new musicians in the group, he met drummer Tony Allen, who accompanied Fela for more than a decade the most significant productions.
It was the artistic genius of Allen, with its revolutionary rhythmic percussion that can replace a whole orchestra of drums, to give the final form of the kind that Kuti, in 1967, during a trip to Ghana to explore new ideas, christened the term Afrobeat.
fundamental was the meeting in 1969, the United States, with the partisan Sandra Smith of the Black Panther Party, a movement of emancipation of the population African-American, who greatly influenced the message of his music, so as to make his lyrics focus on a critique of dictatorial policy adopted in his native country, an example of all the album titled Zombie.
Fela believed in the idea of \u200b\u200ba united, democratic African republic, as a supporter of Pan-Africanism and socialism also during the seventies and eighties, in his lyrics stood out the harshest criticism to dictatorships and military governments in Nigeria and therefore was proud supporter human rights!
same time attacking the conduct of the upper class, which, according to him, bowed before the will of the dictatorship, thus destroying the old African traditions.
The '69 Los Angeles Sessions is recognized as the first album with Fela's original band, meanwhile renamed Nigeria '70, recorded in a very short time in Los Angeles are illegal, since the components were without work permits. In this work you will feel no musical references to radical funk of James Brown, which subsequently affect the vision of the young musician.
his return to Lagos, the group was renamed again as the '70s and Africa, and the name finally changed also the content of their songs: all the issues of abandoned and sentimental love songs from radio success assured, produced true messages of political and social propaganda.
was then that Fela gave birth to Kalakas Republic: a recording studio, a community, but also a true home for all employees working in his new movement, so to be declared independent from the rest of the state of Nigeria.
The African tradition in which he believed also admitted polygamy, and even the Republic of Kalakas was founded as a place where polygamy was generally permitted. While not strictly part of African culture, it should be noted that Fela was very liberal in matters of sexuality , as stated in the "Open and Close. He also expressed some ideas that could be considered sexist , as when, for example, describes women as "nannies".
But his most provocative and sensational exploit was perhaps what he saw in 1982, married 27 women simultaneously (from whom he divorced in 1986).
At his revolutionary vision of music and politics Fela came a lifestyle that attracted trouble like a magnet known to be accustomed to marijuana, womanizer and unconventional (note his habit of turning in his underwear), Fela, to underline its separation from the colonial reality, denied his middle name European Ransome (that name from "slave") to adopt the new middle name of Anikulapo or "one which has its own death. "
From here on the success grew, Fela then decided to take his songs as the language of the Pidgin English, understandable to all corners of Africa where the languages \u200b\u200band dialects are very numerous.
In 1977, also with Africa '70, gave birth to album Zombie, a snub to the military authorities, in which the zombie metaphor is used to describe the troops of soldiers, puppets, moved the will of the entrepreneurial class and exploiting the weakest of the masses.
This success, however, began to disrupt the repressive military policy: for they were numerous armed incursions into the Kalak, one of which the same old mother of Fela died after being thrown from a window, after which the town was finally given to the flames, sending smoke in so many of the records produced to date.
Despite his musicians began to fear for their safety, endangered by the numerous public addresses during their live performances, Fela also decided to undertake a political career, giving birth to a movement called MOP (Movement Of the People), presenting his candidacy in 1979 Nigerian primary election, that application was rejected.
That was clearly unhappy with this outcome, however, continued its propaganda by organizing tours and recording new albums throughout his country under the name of Egypt 80.
During his life the musician was quoted in court about 350 times and was imprisoned on three occasions: in 1984 he was arrested on a trivial charge, but saw him helpless in prison for over twenty months and this event sparked the mobilization of many human rights groups, to push the General Ibrahim Bagangida to release the revolutionary patriot Fela Kuti.
This latest experience only served to strengthen his will to continue to profess his message of rebellion, so as to obtain a part of the stage at the big event of 1986 at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, or the Conspiracy of Hope concert organized by Amnesty International, which also took part in such artists as Carlos Santana, the Neville Brothers and Bono.
Despite its outputs maladrine and his somewhat dissolute life, which certainly fed his legend, Fela's reputation continues to grow even after his death in 1997 from complications due to AIDS. About his life and his music have been published numerosi libri e album celebrativi, ma la sua maggiore eredità rimane comunque la sua musica: al suo attivo Fela può contare circa 47 album, la maggior parte dei quali pubblicati dall’etichetta Barclay Records. Tra tutti i miei preferiti restano il Live! con Ginger Baker del 1970, Expensive Shit del 1975 (l’omonimo singolo è stato remixato anche dal duo Masters At Work), ovviamente Zombie del 1976, ma anche l’album Music of Many Colours in collaborazione con Roy Ayers, al quale appartiene il singolo 2000 Blacks Got To Be Free nel quale si incrociano la delicata musicalità soul di Ayers e l’agressiva ritmica Afrobeat di Fela.
Nonostante l’assenza sulla scena current music of a character so charismatic Kuti, today is his son Femi to continue with his band Positive Force, his father's message. Meanwhile, his old arranger Tony Allen continues to develop that his original sound, mixing it with modern vibration, while a host of new groups such as Antibalas, become dell'Afrobeat spokesman in the 21st century.
And as written on the t-shirt worn dj Rich Medina during an interview:
FELA REST IN BEATS!
Claudio Valerio
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