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Fela Kuti
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Fela Kuti, born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti in 1938 in Abeokuta, Nigeria, was a musician and political activist and is regarded as the most important innovator of afrobeat, a style that combines West African music with American funk and jazz. He came from a well-off family. His mother Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was an anti-colonial feminist, his father an Anglican minister and headmaster. His cousin was the writer Wole Soyinka. In 1958 he went to London to study at Trinity College of Music, with the trumpet as his instrument.
Music and breakthrough
In the 1970s, with his band Africa '70, with the drummer and musical director Tony Allen, he became a star in Nigeria. He was an outspoken critic of the military regimes and also became their target. In 1970 he founded the Kalakuta Republic, a commune that declared itself independent of military rule. In 1977 it was destroyed by the army, in which Kuti was injured and his mother was killed. In 1984 the Buhari government imprisoned him, and he was released after twenty months. His records from those years include Shakara, Gentleman, Zombie and Kalakuta Show, often with long tracks of more than ten minutes. After his death in 1997, his son Femi Kuti oversaw reissues.
Influence
Kuti's music is built on a continuous rhythmic groove, with sharp brass, high vocal choruses and long improvisations, and with lyrics about power and injustice in Nigeria. He showed that pop music could be a political weapon. In 2026 he was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Listening
Discography
Studio albums
- 1965Fela Ransome Kuti and His Koola Lobitos
- 1971Fela's London Scene
- 1971Na Poi
- 1971Open & Close
- 1971Why Black Man Dey Suffer
- 1972Roforofo Fight
- 1972Shakara
- 1973Afrodisiac
- 1973Gentleman
- 1974Alagbon Close
- 1974Confusion
- 1975Before I Jump Like Monkey Give Me Banana
- 1975Everything Scatter
- 1975Expensive Shit
- 1975He Miss Road
- 1975Noise for Vendor Mouth
- 1976Excuse O
- 1976Ikoyi Blindness
- 1976Kalakuta Show
- 1976No Bread
- 1976Up Side Down
- 1976Yellow Fever
- 1976Zombie
- 1977Fear Not for Man
- 1977No Agreement
- 1977Opposite People
- 1977Sorrow Tears and Blood
- 1977Stalemate
- 1978Shuffering and Shmiling
- 1979International Thief Thief (I.T.T.)
- 1979Unknown Soldier
- 1980Authority Stealing
- 1980Music of Many Colours
- 1981Coffin for Head of State
- 1981Original Sufferhead
- 1983Perambulator
- 1984Army Arrangement
- 1985Army Arrangement
- 1986I Go Shout Plenty!!!
- 1986Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense
- 1989Beasts of No Nation
- 1989ODOO (Overtake Don Overtake Overtake)
- 1990Confusion Break Bones
- 1991Just Like That
- 1992Underground System
- 2010FELA! (Original Broadway Cast Recording) (soundtrack)
- 2014Finding Fela (soundtrack)
In School of Rock
The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.
- After Hours: Session 4NL Reader
Mentioned in other articles
- Afrobeat Genre
Around 1970 Fela Kuti in Lagos blended highlife with jazz and the funk of James Brown: Afrobeat.
- Afrobeats Genre
It is something different from the Afrobeat of Fela Kuti, although the name honours that forerunner.