Saluting the Black President FELA KUTI

THE RISE OF AFROBEAT: FELA’S TRIUMPHANT REBIRTH (by Carlos Moore)

+ THE PHENOMENON +

Over a decade after his death, vindication has come to Fela Kuti, Africa’s musical genius. AfroBeat, his gift to the world, is now an international staple on his own uncompromising terms, social content intact.

Throughout his life, Fela contended that AfroBeat was a modern form of danceable, African classical music with an urgent message for the planet’s denizens. Created out of a cross-breeding of Funk, Jazz, Salsa and Calypso with Juju, Highlife and African percussive patterns, it was to him a political weapon.

Fela refused to bow to the music industry’s preference for 3-minute tracks, nor did he buckle under entreaties to moderate his overwhelmingly political lyrics. He went down in 1997 still railing against the consumerist gimmicks that taint pop music, with the aim, he felt, of promoting and imposing homogenous aesthetic standards worldwide, thereby inducing passivity.

The fact that AfroBeat is today globally winning hearts in its original form — lengthy, ably crafted, earthy compositions laced with explicitly political lyrics — suggests that Fela’s purgatory on earth may have served to awaken a sensibility in people to appreciate authenticity and substance.