Fela on 4

[johncorrigan]

Chanced on this very fine programme about Fela Kuti on Radio 4 this lunchtime - really enjoyed it!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011j8zj

[Globaltruth]

I seem to recall we had a thread in the other place called 'Radio 4 - the World Music station'.....

thanks for this too JC.

And I particularly like the fact that iPayer suggest that.... if you like the Fela Kuti programme, then you might like this
"A portrait of the life, popular art and remarkable engineering of Carters Steam Fair."

Of course, they're right.

[Lateralthinking1]

I listened to this programme last night and enjoyed it.

It is only in very recent years that I have appreciated afrobeat. I think it came with seeing Seun Kuti live actually and one or two postings of yours here, Global. I sort of knew about Fela Kuti for decades but he always seemed a bit mysterious and however much I learn about his life he still seems so.

I go back to a question I asked some time ago which is the extent to which he received coverage on the BBC in the 1970s. I recall very little indeed but I may have been with the wrong radio and television programmes.

[johncorrigan]

I listened to this programme last night and enjoyed it.

It is only in very recent years that I have appreciated afrobeat. I think it came with seeing Seun Kuti live actually and one or two postings of yours here, Global. I sort of knew about Fela Kuti for decades but he always seemed a bit mysterious and however much I learn about his life he still seems so.

I go back to a question I asked some time ago which is the extent to which he received coverage on the BBC in the 1970s. I recall very little indeed but I may have been with the wrong radio and television programmes.

It remains one of life's uncomfortable moments for me, my first encounter with the music of Fela Kuti - I was out of work, pretty skint in late '82, early '83. I was looking for a short cut through to Maryhill in Glasgow one afternoon and came across a shop I hadn't noticed before. It seemed to sell just about anything - I've got a feeling that the comics in the window drew me in.

There were a couple of guys in the shop - an old guy who to this day I assume was West Indian was at the counter - I saw a shelf of records in the corner and started looking through - I remember it being all West Indian and African music, which really surprised me. I think I had been listening to a bit of Sunny Ade but don't know what else I would have known back then. I looked at this cover, it was Fela Kuti, and asked the guy if I could hear it. He seemed totally delighted. For the next 10 minutes it seemed we three danced wildly around this wee shop - it was unbelievable.

However when the song finished I looked at the price and realised it was not an LP, but a 12" single and the price seemed a bit high for that - I pondered. I remember the look of total disbelief on the shopkeeper's face when I decided not to buy it. The atmosphere changed and I went out totally embarrassed.

A couple of weeks later I decided I needed to try to go back to get the record - but I never saw the shop open again. I looked elsewhere for a bit of Fela Kuti but never got back to that moment. I often wondered what happened to that shop and that guy - felt like a plot for a cartoon or something.

[Globaltruth]

... I often wondered what happened to that shop and that guy - felt like a plot for a cartoon or something.

'You can't go to shops like that every day...'

http://www.online-literature.com/wellshg/10/

[Lateralthinking1]

John - That is an extraordinary story. It also brings back memories of how record shops used to be and, of course, how special a place like that felt in those days before the internet and greater internationalism.

King Sunny Ade definitely fits into that category of names for me too. Add Masekela and Osibisa and that was almost Africa. Ashamed to say that until Graceland, I wasn't aware really even of Miriam Makeba but then came the big splash of colour in the late eighties - Bhundus, Four Brothers, Youssou, Salif and so on.

At times, though, Paul has posted some of the artists who were in London in the seventies and there is a real vibe from them. As you know, I spent a lot of time in the London neighbourhoods at that time. The clips bring back a memory and also reveal more what was going on.

While I posted a clip of a budgie doing an excellent rendition of a Fela song, what you say supports my feeling about afrobeat. It is almost impossible to "get" alone. Only when there is a group of people or an audience does it make sense - and then that sense is absolutely instantaneous and long-lasting.

There are possibly very few genres in which the music and the audience interact so that the audience becomes such an integral part of the music and indeed performance. It would be very difficult not to dance to it and that seems in every way absolutely elemental. Tony Allen is to this day the most name checked musician at Womad, at least from my experience - Lat.

[Globaltruth]

.... I think it came with seeing Seun Kuti live actually and one or two postings of yours here, Global. ....

to be fair I have to say that it was Paul & Calum who put me onto the whole AfroBeat thing back on the old boards.

For which I thank them

[Paul Sherratt]

We did ???

Thanks for saying so !

[Globaltruth]

We did ???

Thanks for saying so !

It was a long time ago when the world was young and dear old Gabrielle used to liven up the place...HO hum.

[Lateralthinking1]

One other thing I did notice on the Glastonbury schedule was that they will have the cast of "FELA!". Now if BBC television manages to track that down, it will definitely be worth having the multitudes from production there:

http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/57358/productions/fela.html

[Oliver Postgate]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/worldmusic/feature_felakuti.shtml

First broadcast on Monday 6th September 2004 at 9.30pm and still online

Max Reinhardt and Rita Ray presented a portrait of this important figure in Nigeria’s musical and social history, to coincide with the Barbican’s multi-arts Fela Kuti festival "Black President" (9 Sept-24 Oct 2004).

Fela "Anikulapo" Kuti was a Nigerian singer, bandleader, composer and multi-instrumentalist who pioneered one of Africa’s most successful and influential musical styles, "Afro-Beat", which combined elements of West African highlife music with American jazz and funk. Seven years on from his death, the world is starting to recognise the work of Fela Kuti as one of the most significant bodies of 20th-Century popular music. The sheer power of his music, the scathing dialectic of his lyrics, his controversial lifestyle and consequent iconic status have all nurtured a rich legacy. But who was he? What was his impact, before and after his death, in African politics and music? Was he a revolutionary prophet and voice of the people or a just an outspoken rock star, a patriarchal hedonist who famously married 27 women in one ceremony?

Max Reinhardt and Rita Ray are passionate about Fela Kuti and founded the Shrine club night in London, a tribute to Fela Kuti's own club in Lagos, where his music was created and performed. They travel to Nigeria, to the busy port city of Lagos and visit the site of the old Shrine nightclub, the New Afrika Shrine now run by his son Femi, the house and commune which he named the "Kalakuta Republic", and his birthplace in nearby Abeokuta. They talk to family members including his cousin Yemisi Ransome-Kuti and sister Dolupo Ransome-Kuti, one of his widows Fehintolla Anikulapo Kuti, his friend and PR manager JK Braimah, his biographer Michael Veal, journalist Vivien Goldman, and surviving key bandmembers including drummer Tony Allen and keyboard player Dele Sosimi.

Produced by Felix Carey

[Lateralthinking1]

Thank you Oliver Postgate. I have just listened to this programme and enjoyed it. The more recent programme on R4 treads similar ground, if not quite as well, and unsurprisingly for the story of Fela is fascinating on so many levels. There is even now a musical. That he was, and is, big is without a doubt. I wonder, though, if this can be a barrier to full historical context and further musical development. On the latter, we hear that there is scope for broadening Afrobeat. I agree but as with his political legacy it seems vague, at least as presented, at best. I would therefore like to hear more from Radio 3 about the following -

1. Information about highlife music from the early 20th century onwards - there was a lot of it - and how it was that Fela came to that first.

2. A detailed account of his time in America, his performances there, and the precise influence on him of soul music which quickly became popular across Africa.

3. More about the individual albums and the lyrical content. How political exactly?

4. Afrobeat now. White Americans - indie - are dabbling with it in their own style. Black artists have used it frequently in loops for new genres. In its purer form, it is the offspring of Kuti or Tony Allen. What about younger black musicians?

On a different matter, it is interesting to hear that he recorded 50 albums. I started to ask myself who a series on the most prolific artists of all time might include and it is an odd bunch of people. Along with Kuti, I would guess Pete Seeger, McCartney, Joan Baez and, erm, Tangerine Dream (71?) but I am sure that we could do better, particurly from a world music point of view.