5 Pillars of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti

On August 2, 1997, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti died in a hospital in Lagos.

He was taken into Victoria Island Consultancy and Hospital Services Centre on Monday, July 22 and it was confirmed there that Fela was suffering from the dreaded Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, AIDS. The family announced it to the world a day after his demise.

The 5 Pillars, though, is not about Fela the man but Fela the musician.

In over 30 years of recording, Fela certainly made a few mediocre songs that do not deserve to be remembered, let alone endlessly reissued. But not the fabulous five touched by the genius.

So, to mark the 18th anniversary of the death of the King of Afrobeat, we choose the songs that define his musical legacy.

MY LADY’S FRUSTRATION

This track was an homage to Sandra Smith, the American who exposed Fela to Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, and the history of Africa.

The song integrated African chants and a type of drumming pattern attributed to Ambrose Campbell, a drummer and guitarist who began his musical career as a member of the Jolly Orchestra, a palm wine guitar band performing in Lagos during the 1930s.

In Fela: This Bitch of a Life by Carlos Moore, the Abami Eda recalls how My Lady’s Frustration – the first true afrobeat song – came about:

“One day I sat down at the piano in Sandra’s house. I said to Sandra: ‘Do you know what? I’ve just been fooling around. I haven’t been playing African music. So now I want to try to write African music…for the first time.’ …I went to play this new number…I didn’t know how the crowd would take the sound, you know. I just started. (The club owner) was behind the bar and he almost jumped over it. …’Fela, where did you get this tune from? Whaaaat!’ I knew then I’d found the thing, man. To me, it was the first African tune I’d written ‘til then.”

This song is different from his earlier outputs of highlife-jazz or pure rhythm-and-blues. It is rather a mixture of both elements. And Fela used this type of song pattern in the early 70s when afrobeat took its final and refined form.

JEUN K’OKU

Jeun K’oku was released after James Brown’s December 1970 visit to Nigeria and this track buried the thoughts of the American as it became a major hit in the country and other countries in West Africa.

This hilarious song – a comic portrayal of a glutton – established Fela and Nigeria ’70!

Igo Chico, Fela’s tenor saxophonist during the days of Koola Lobitos, knows the role this particular track played in Fela’s body of work.

“Since the debut of his hit track ‘Jeun K’oku,’ afrobeat has remained the sole preserve of Fela. … No one seemed to have found the formula, the keynotes to afrobeat.”

And Michael Veal in his book, The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon, explains how the music legend concocted the track that the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation banned in 1971 because of its overt sexual references.

“With this new form of afrobeat, Fela clarified his instrumental conception and invented a distinct sound that successfully transmuted the anger, passion, pride, and self-conscious ‘Africanness’ of the black power impulse into a unique, instantly recognisable style,” he wrote.

“At the same time, Jeun K’oku established him as a popular derisive humourist, fitting into an abusive sub-genre previously hinted at in ‘J’ehin J’ehin’, ‘Who Are You,’ and ‘Na Fight O.’ Finally, the song’s success drove home to Fela the importance of composing music inspired by, and directed towards, his own cultural environment.”

ZOMBIE

This track released in 1976, mocked soldiers as robotic idiots mindlessly following orders.

Zombie no go go, unless you tell am to go

[chorus] Zombie (after each line)

Zombie no go stop, unless you tell am to stop

Zombie no go turn, unless you tell am to turn

Zombie no go think, unless you tell am to think

Zombie-o, zombie

[chorus] Zombie-o, Zombie (2x) *(repeat last 2 stanzas)

Tell am to go straight … Na Joro, Jara, Joro

No brain, no job, no sense… Na Joro, Jara, Joro

Tell am to go kill… Na Joro, Jara, Joro

No brain, no job, no sense… Na Joro, Jara, Joro

Tell am to go quench… Na Joro, Jara, Joro

No brain, no job, no sense… Na Joro, Jara, Joro

Go and kill

[chorus] joro, jara, joro *(after each line)

Go and die

Go and quench

Put am for reverse

Go and kill

Go and die

Go and quench *(3x)

Joro, Jara, Joro– O Zombie way na one way (3x)

Joro, Jara, Joro– Ooooh

Attention

*[CHORUS] ZOMBIE *(in time- average every 2-3 words)

Quick march

Slow march

Left turn

Right turn

About turn

Double up

Sa-lute

Open your hat

Stand at ease

Fall in

Fall out

Fall down

Get ready *(2x)

Zombie, which is arguably Fela’s most popular and biggest-selling track, is even loved by soldiers!

“People think that because of his track, ‘Zombie’, he did offend the military,” Captain Jaiye Baidejoko, the deputy director of Defence Information told The Guardian newspaper during the burial of the Abami Eda on August, 11, 1997.

“What they did not know was that the track was played more in the officers’ mess than in the streets. It was good music. There is nothing wrong with the music. What is wrong with it, that we take orders without question?

“That is all part of the military tradition. You carry out orders before you query them. Why would anyone be angry about the music?”

But that was not the view on February 18, 1977 when a thousand soldiers unleashed terror on Kalakuta Republic.

The ‘Zombie’ took their pound of flesh!

NO AGREEMENT

Most companies have a vision statement. No Agreement is Fela’s own vision statement.

You can call the track “a sort of formal public declaration of his new uncompromising stance against injustice and trynany” like Tejumola Olaniyan calls it in his book Arrest The Music! Fela & His Rebel Art and Politics, and you wouldn’t be wrong.

No Agreement Today, No Agreement Tomorrow – 2x

I no go gree make my brother hungry, make I no talk

*(chorus) la la la la ! la la ! – [after each line]

I no go gree make my brother jobless, make I no talk

I no go gree make my brother homeless, make I no talk

My grandpapa talk, your grandpapa talk

My grandmama talk, your grandmama talk

Your papa talk, my papa talk

My mama talk, your mama talk

Those wey no talk them they gree

I no go gree make my brother hungry, make I no talk

(chorus) la la la la! la la!

No agreement today, no agreement tomorrow

*(chorus) No Agreement Today, No Agreement Tomorrow – [After Each Line]

No agreement now, later, never and ever…

This solemn track summarises his self-chosen mantle of the voice of the voiceless – with dire consequences.

BEAST OF NO NATION

On April 23, 1986, Fela was released from prison after spending 532 days behind bars in connection with non-declaration of foreign currency.

Three years later, he released BONN, which could well be titled Fela Is Back, like Elvis Presley released Elvis Is Back in April, 1960 after spending two “inactive” musical years in the army.

On his release, Elvis recorded this masterpiece in which he tackles ballad, blues, rock, pop, and gospel. Fela, on his part, tackled “animal in human skin”!

BONN condemns the brutal and oppressive regimes in the world with Fela using the injustice of his own imprisonment as a point of reference.

Make you hear this one [sax responses]

War against indiscipline, ee-oh

Na Nigerian government, ee-oh

Dem dey talk ee-oh

“My people are us-e-less, My people are sens-i-less, My people lack discipline”

Na Nigerian government, ee-oh

Dem dey talk be dat

“My people are us-e-less, My people are sens-i-less, My people lack discipline”

I never hear dat before- oh

Make Government talk, ee-oh

“My people are us-e-less, My people are sens-i-less, My people lack discipline”

Na Nigerian government, ee-oh

Dem dey talk be dat

Which kind talk be dat- ee-oh?

Na craze talk be dat ee-oh

Na animal talk be dat ee-oh

Na animal talk be dat ee-oh….

Igo Chico is also impressed with BONN:

“A masterpiece composed by Fela in prison, BONN could mark the beginning of a new Fela afrobeat,” he said.

“Lyrically, it was pleasant reminder of Fela in the 70s, at the peak of the afrobeat journey. His lead vocal blended smoothly and melodiously with the chorus.

“He used two bass guitarists, first to complement each other and then for emphasis. The effect was terrific. He also brought in the long, guttural-sounding native drums to further increase the baritone undertone of the music.

“The horns again poured out unrestricted, closing up the loose ends and asserting, more than ever before, Fela’s seat among the masters.”

You may not agree with our choices and that’s not a problem. But it will be a problem if you keep it to yourself. So, let’s have your comment.

However, we profiled Fela’s songs of reference and not his songs which are our preference. Have that in mind!