Fela: The Abami Eda 20 years on (II)
Obviously whatever one writes about Fela is bound to have a lot of readers’ reaction. That is exactly what happened to the piece I wrote last week on Nigeria’s music maestro Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Many readers have very fond memories of Fela which they love to share. Let me start with a contribution which I received […]
Obviously whatever one writes about Fela is bound to have a lot of readers’ reaction. That is exactly what happened to the piece I wrote last week on Nigeria’s music maestro Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Many readers have very fond memories of Fela which they love to share. Let me start with a contribution which I received from my senior colleague at Government College, Keffi, and Ahmadu Bello University Zaria (ABU). He wrote:
“You clearly are a Fela fan and omo jaiye-jaiye to boot! My first experience with Fela was in 1971 when he was invited to ABU for the Convocation Dance. He was then Fela Ransome-Kuti and the Africa 70. It was a scramble to get in, even at the subsidised (by the Students Union) entrance fee of 10 shillings. It was pleasant and memorable.
“Next time it was Easter 1974, while serving in the Midwestern State. Fela was in Benin City to perform what was tagged Sunday afternoon jump – these events usually lasted from 4-5pm to 9pm, meant to round off the weekend. My friends and I were ensconced at the club by 5pm. Opening acts came and went, one after the other, without the sight of Fela. Anger and impatience gave way to resignation. He appeared on stage at 1:00am! Guess his opening song? ‘I no be gentleman at all, at all – I be Africa man original!’ We were all doubled up with laughter – what could you say to one who admitted to one who admitted to not being a gentleman?” – M. T. Usman.
That is Fela for you, an enigma. The Abami Eda, as Fela called himself, could be translated from its Yoruba origin to be either, abnormal, weird or strange. But strangeness has always been the bane of famous artists and Fela could not have been an exception. In more recent times Fela’s famous contemporaries, Elvis Presley and Micheal Jackson exhibited some quirky behaviour that eventually consumed them. Fela was our greatest musician but many regarded him as a social deviant who throughout his life had issues with the authorities.
From his youth Fela had always seen himself as a musician even though his parents had plans for him to be a medical doctor. Even in high school in Lagos, Fela was said to be moonlighting with Victor Olaiya’s band.
When eventually he was sent to the United Kingdom with his two brothers, Olukoye and Beko to study medicine, Fela made a turn around to study music. Both Olikoye and Beko became medical doctors. In fact, Olukoye became a famed Professor of Medicine and a Federal Minister of Health, while Beko practised as a medical doctor but was more well-known as a civil rights activist. While in London, Fela flung himself fully into studying music in the Trinity College of Music. Whatever time was left, he scoured the London clubs to absorb what he could, particularly from the jazz bands that were the rave of the moment. Fela was even said to have formed his band, the Koola Lobitos while in London.
He returned to Nigeria in 1963 and struggled to find a place in the crowded Lagos music scene then dominated by the high life genre. By the mid-1960s, the civil war provided an opportunity as the Lagos music scene thinned when most of the big high life bands moved to the East. Fela took his band for an extended tour of the United States of America (USA) in 1969 where his political views were radically transformed when he met and had close interaction with the radical Muslim, Malcolm X and other Black rights activists.
When Fela returned to Nigeria, he was a different person. He had become radicalized and even changed his surname Ransome-Kuti, which he regarded as a slave name to Anikulapo-Kuti. Even his band was renamed The Africa 70. The lyrics of his songs became more stringent against those perpetuating the social ills affecting the society, particularly the military who held the reins of power then. Fela settled in Mushin in a compound which he named Kalakuta Republic which became his home and club house. As his music took Lagos in storm his Kalakuta Republic became a centre of attraction for not only music lovers but also the disaffected in the Lagos society.
All sorts of seedy houses mushroomed in the environment attracting the dregs of Lagos society. It was inevitable that Fela and the authorities would clash. The big clash came in February in 1977 when in a show of strength soldiers burnt and looted his properties in the Fela’s Kalakuta Republic. Fela went on exile to Ghana but later decided to return and pick up the pieces and relocate to Ikeja. He never relented and had many other brushes with subsequent military regimes. In fact in the mid-1980s he was sent to jail for ten years on what would now be considered a minor infraction of currency smuggling. The struggle with the military regimes never abated till his death in 1997.
However twenty years after Fela’s death it seems all is forgiven by the extent of the celebrations of his life taking place not only within the country but also in many countries across the African continent. The celebrations dubbed Felabration had actually been an annual event taking place in Ikeja capital of Lagos State is this year made to be a festival taking place in many parts of the world to celebrate the twentieth year of his passing on.