The global legacy of Fela Kuti’s defiant dance music

Originally published @ bbc.co.uk

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Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti has inspired Beyoncé, Brian Eno and Damon Albarn. On what would have been his 80th birthday BRIAN MORTON looks back on the time he was granted a rare meeting with the self-styled "black president" at his gated studio in Lagos.

In Lagos, it is the ‘sufferheads’ who party. You can tell a lot about cultures from their reaction to adversity and oppression. Some put on sackcloth and close the doors. Others celebrate. In Nigeria it tends to be the latter. Muhammadu Buhari, the former military leader and Fela Kuti’s sworn enemy, is back in power again, this time as president and in his own words, a “converted democrat”. 

It was Afrobeat pioneer Fela and his Africa ’80 group who provided the soundtrack to Buhari’s cruel early 80s regime; a body of extravagantly defiant dance music that masked anger and pain behind fierce joy.

After the extraordinary trilogy of albums Fela made in 1981 – Black President, Original Sufferhead, Unknown Soldier – there was a hiatus while he served a jail sentence for “currency offences” trumped up by Buhari’s lackeys.

When he emerged, he divorced his wives, all twelve of them, and went back into the studio to make first Army Arrangement and then the astonishing Beasts of No Nation. Perhaps no other album cover – or maybe just those for Sgt Pepper and Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew – has been more widely discussed.

The artwork created by Lemi Ghariokwu shows Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and P. W. Botha, all horned, with Botha’s promise that “this uprising [against apartheid] will bring out the beast in us”.

The album cover for Beasts of No Nation features the likenesses of Mobutu Sese Seko, General Buhari, Tunde Idiagbon, Margaret Thatcher, P.W. Botha and Reagan.

 

Though his mother was no longer alive when I met him, it was her name that gained me unexpected access to Fela’s circle in 1985. My father had met her at the end of the war when he was still serving in Nigeria, albeit in a Northern Hausa-speaking town rather than Lagos.

The connection, which seemed improbable given Fela’s family’s anti-colonial politics, seems to have meant something, because a meeting was arranged. But it was made clear that there was to be no interview and no recording.

I was picked up in a car and driven at shocking speed through the streets of Lagos, over what was clearly an unnecessarily elaborate route, since we passed the same barber’s, with a tiny man in white shorts squatting outside, at least three times.

Neither the driver nor the man who sat in the back beside me spoke a word, and when we arrived at a small gated studio in a back street they simply got out of the car, leaving the doors wide and walked into the building. Not knowing where I was and fairly rattled, I thought I'd better go in.

There was Fela, slight, smiling but with no kindness in his eyes. Gradually the room filled. I was the only white face. There was a strong smell of hashish, but no one was smoking.

Fela didn’t so much rise from his couch as levitate. The only genuinely charismatic men I have ever met were Fela and the artist Joseph Beuys. He began to speak, fast, bending forward from the hips, wearing a patterned shirt open over a strangely concave torso. How did that little frame produce a voice that, like Bob Marley’s, sang redemption songs for the whole world? And how did he manage to blow his saxophones with so much force?

 What he said was a mixture of pidgin and Yoruba, strongly cadenced as if he were reciting an epic poem. I understood none of it. It reached some kind of climax and then one by one the others left the room.

 

I had about ten minutes alone with Fela, talking about mothers and fathers. He gave me a saxophone mouthpiece – hard Bakelite, with tooth marks – and then left without a goodbye. The journey back to my hotel was no slower, but somehow made more sense.

Fela Kuti would have been 80 today (15 October 2018). He was born Olufela Olusegun Oludoton Ransome-Kuti in Abeokuta, in the Nigerian south west. He was raised in an educated and deeply anti-colonial family.

Fela went off to London to study medicine, as two of his brothers were to do, but switched to music and went to Trinity College.

There are recordings of him in London playing a hybrid of jazz and highlife. But it was not until he had studied African music in Accra and spent an ear- and eye-opening 1969 in Los Angeles that he began to develop his distinctive sound and style of recording.

Fela did not so much make songs as whole albums. Beasts of No Nation (which plays in my house every day while supper is prepared) is a single LP-side of music, a dark chant over declamatory organ, saxophone and guitar, comparable in its darkness to Miles’s notorious Agharta and Pangaea albums.

Fela believed that his country was run by zombies. His paranoia was certainly fuelled by alcohol and drugs, but also by sustained trauma. A powerful brain began to turn in on itself, and his tragedy was that he began to believe his own legend and, all too literally, in magic. 

 

Having abandoned the Ransome name as “enslaving” and adopting the new middle name of Anikulapo (which is said to mean “he who has death in his pouch”) he turned his back on Western medicine, too. In 1997, his death was announced. His brother, who had served in government as a health minister, said that Fela died of AIDS. Some believe that this was propaganda, to highlight the HIV epidemic. It scarcely matters. Fela’s passing put the disease in the headlines.

More than a million people viewed his body, which seemed improbably tiny. He may have chanted "dem go worry me, worry me, worry worry worry worry" but like Marley and the great blues men, he made art out of pain and life out of a near constant contact with death. He would have been 80 today. Maybe even president.

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Originally published @ bbc.co.uk
 

Ebo Taylor About "Yen Ara"

Ebo, Good to hear your voice. Are you in Saltpond now?

I’m in Saltpond now.

Ah, I wish I was there. It’s cold and snowing here in New York. But we’re surviving.

Well, I wish I was in New York.

I would like that too. I hope we can help make that happen. I’ve been listening to this new album. It’s beautiful work, once again.

O.K. Thank you very much.

Tell me the story of this record.

This recording took about one year to prepare. Some of the songs were from other works, earlier works, that we had to retouch and rearrange to suit the modern, the current trends of music. For example, “Krumadey.” It is about the history of people associating with a mad man through his music. In those days, there was not so much music around. “Yen Ara” says, “We, who are only 30, conquered one thousand. We did it. It is us!” The people of this village, a Fanti people, who were only 30, boasted of their power to conquer one thousand Ashanti warriors. So this has a history of the Asafo music that we play in this country.

Asafo. I remember this. This is music associated with the Ashanti wars.

You know, our music is unlike any other Western tune. It takes its roots from the Ghanaian Asafo music. We try to get it into a danceable form, while keeping its history and merit.

Speaking of the album overall, are all these traditional songs, or adaptations?

The ones I spoke of are traditional songs. “Yen Ara” is a traditional song of the military wing of every Asafo company. And it is sung to celebrate their victory over a thousand enemies. “Mumudey” also has a history. It’s about a dwarf who lived with some people, and who could play every type of music. He could play trumpet or sax, any type of instrument, and he dressed immaculately. The people thought he was very clever, so they honored him with a name and a song. They called him, “Abiouti Konfu.” So all these songs are historical music of the Fanti people of the west coast of Ghana.

You also have a couple of songs in English, like “Poverty” and “Mind Your Own Business.” Are these your compositions?

 

Yes. These are my compositions. Every song on this record that is not traditional is my composition. “Mind Your Own Business” advises everybody to stick to his own business and keep his nose out of other people’s business. I think it’s fair advice.

It certainly is.

Then I have “Ankoma’m.” This is an exhibition of the fear of a loner who has all his people dead, and is now walking on the edge, alone. But he is capable of keeping up with his problems. All these songs have variety. The recording is not repetitive. Every song is different, a different mood, a different form.

What about the lead track, “Poverty”?

Oh, “Poverty.” Nobody wants to be poor in this world. As a matter of fact, that is a statement that we can make, and we are definite about it. Nobody wants to be poor in this world. If you are poor, you won’t get married, you won’t get a car, you won’t get a house. So nobody wants to be poor, and the best way for you not to be poor is to work hard. To create. You don’t have to be rich, but only to be fairly capable of taking care of yourself. So nobody in this world wants to be poor.

Amen.

Amen.

So, Ebo, speaking of rich and poor, I have been reading in the newspaper that the economy in Ghana is doing very well right now. Do you feel that? Do you feel like less people are poor now?

Yes, certainly. But, people are still not very comfortable with what they have to live on. Because if the economy is good, it should show up in the living style of the people. But people are still paying for goods and for food, high prices that they can’t meet. And the worst thing is that the economy has hit the health system. You go to the hospital, and then the prescriptions in the pharmacy are very high prices, and obviously, people will die from it. It’s amazing that someone will have to pay about 1800 [cedi] to be given some medicines from the hospital for diabetes, and for high blood pressure. These are very high; the drug prices are high. And that is even more threatening than the food and other goods. Electricity as been brought down by about 30 percent and that might help people to solve some of their problems, but personally, I cannot say I am very comfortable with the situation.

That’s tough, Ebo. Let’s come back to the music. Where did you record this record, and who was the band?

 

Some of the musicians are my children. The guy who sang “Krumadey” is my son and also “Mumudey Mumudey.” Those are my sons, Henry and Roy Taylor. Others are Philip Arthur on percussion, Rim Akandoh, on the drums and Emmanuel Ackon is playing the bass. Then my two sons are on percussion and piano. These musicians have a clever way of playing my music. And I think they did very well in the studio in Holland, in Amsterdam. Though before that, we had a lot of rehearsals in Ghana, so they had found it very easy to record tracks. They were well rehearsed.

It shows. What about the brass section? The brass on this record is sensational.

The brass section is a duet of a trombone and a trumpet. Long John [Ntumy] is on trumpet, and he was very well prepared, playing classical and jazz for the past 15 years. Then [Benjamin] Osabotey, who is on trombone, has been playing trombone for about 30 years, since he was 15 years old.

Wow.

Yeah, and they came out of recording room satisfied with what they did. I think they did very well recording internationally for the first time.

That’s so beautiful, Ebo. And once again, you’ve written such beautiful horn arrangements for these guys. Are these new arrangements you made for these recordings? Even for the traditional songs?

Yes, yes. Some came out right. Some came out not very right, but I hope we will do better the next time.

I think you did just fine. I really like this record, especially the brass. It’s fine work. And are you able to take band to Europe to do concerts?

Oh yes. We thought we needed to change our repertoire for the concerts. There are some songs that have been overplayed, and we want to change them, systematically, with these new grooves.

Well, we want to see you here. Because it’s clear from this recording that you and your group are going strong.

Yes. We will be there.

We can’t wait! Say, I hear you had an interesting time last fall in Nigeria, playing at Felebration in Lagos.

Yes, yes, yes. Mark LeVine invited us and I joined them in Port Harcourt, and then we came to Lagos. We really had a nice time being part of the celebration. Mark worked very hard to get us on the program, though the program was tight. I remember one night, I played for one minute. On the stage. That was it.

One minute? Oh my God.

Yeah, but Fela is a great man. I always wanted to follow him because he has done very well to take highlife in another direction, in a minor mood, and with that Yoruba feeling. He got across and was noticed. I’m glad that there are Afrobeat bands all over Europe.

And here too.

So I congratulate Fela for having done that. He was my contemporary in London whilst I went to the Eric Gilder School of Music. Fela was at another school; I have forgotten the name. But we met quite a lot and played a lot of highlife, infusing it with jazz and talking bigger about highlife’s achievement as an international music.   

When we were down there with you, you told us some wonderful stories about your times with Fela. You know, last month Tony Allen was here in town, and he’s still going strong.

Oh, Tony. Yeah.

He’s up to a lot of interesting things these days, making jazz records and more experimental things. He’s amazing.

Tony is a very exciting musician to work with.

So how do you feel about what’s happening with the newer music in Ghana these days? These young stars keep rising. The music is changing, but it’s doing quite well. Do you ever interact or collaborate with some of these young Ghanaian artists?

 

Yes I do. Last month I was in the studio with Okyeame Kwame, one of the rappers. He wanted to do some traditional highlife and I helped them to arrange it in the studio. I was very glad to have been part of that collaboration, because it’s a recognition of the knowledge of the older musicians. The younger ones are pulling the right strings. I like the situation where the industry is developing, even though the music is still low. Ghanaian musicians are very good musicians. I always say that. You can always find good musicians in Ghana, even though they don’t have any kind of formal training, like those who have been to Berklee or Juilliard. We need formal education in music. It’s unfortunate that the last government deleted music from the school curriculum as a subject.

Really? That’s terrible.

That has created a vacuum of music knowledge. These guys have no formal education, so they are using their brains and their intelligence, and I should say that if they were given the formal education that you get in schools like Berklee or Juilliard or other schools in Europe, there would be much greater musicians in Ghana. So the authorities will have to review their decision to delete music from the school curriculum as a subject.

It is a big mistake. Music gives people so many skills that apply in other areas as well.

Yes. Yes. There is music at university. I taught at Ghana University from 2001 to 2009. But I found it very sterile, because the musicians come with no basic training in music. They can hardly recognize intervals, hardly recognize chords. So they are just starting at university level.

That’s not good. You certainly serve as a good example of how important it is to study music, because you really did, and it makes your work so rich.

Exactly. These musicians who have no formal education in music, as I had a formal education in music, and Teddy Osei, who started Osibisa, also had a formal education in music. You can see that. We were able to go forward more than an uneducated musician.

I am glad to hear that some of the young musicians are working with you and recognizing that the old music has a lot to teach. Even if they don’t have a formal education, they can still learn a lot by listening to people like you.

Yes. I was happy that Okyeame Kwame invited me to the studio to impart some of my music on one of his tracks. In recognition of that, many of them would now like to take private study.

That’s good. You know, I was speaking with Fela’s son Femi a few weeks ago, and I asked him what he thought about the young musicians in Nigeria, and he said a similar thing. They mostly haven’t learned to play instruments. So they’re doing well now, but what happens when they get older and they’re not the new thing anymore? If they can’t play an instrument and don’t have skills, they will be nowhere.

 

Well, sure. Nigeria has great musicians, great songwriters. But I saw some guys in Port Harcourt who could play some very nice lines on their instruments.

Yes. You were at Chicoco, that wonderful organization started by Mark Uwemedimo and Ana Bonaldo and members of the community. Isn’t that a great thing?

Yes. I want to record with them. But the madame is still arranging. When she comes back from Brazil, she will be able to organize a recording at Chicoco.

I hope you get to do that. I would love to hear it. One last thing, I wanted to tell you that our radio program, Afropop, is turning 30 years old this year. We’ve been on the air for 30 years. Maybe for a vet like you, that’s not so long, but for us it’s a long time.

I’d like to be part of the celebration. You have to widen the scope! I am highly impressed by Afropop. This institution is helping to raise up African music. I wish Afropop a happy celebration of 30 years of existence. Bravo!

And bravo to you, Ebo, for another great album. Thanks so much.

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Originally published by afropop.org 

Mogadishu Airfield Arkestra

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Vaudou Game - Otodi

No one had been through those doors in years. Unchanged, seemingly untouched, just a guard watching over it- one wondered whether the place would ever see the light of day again. Built in the 70s by Scotch, there were only twenty such places in the entire world. Twenty studios, all identical. Most had undergone a digital makeover in the 80s, but not this one – situated in Lomé, this studio had stayed true to its original form. Silent and uninhabited but waiting for one thing, and one thing only: for the sacred fire to be lit once again. That of the Togolese Recording Office. Studio OTODI for those in the know.

Through thick layers of dust, the console was vibrating still, impatient to be turned on and spurt out the sound so unique to analog. That sound is what Peter Solo and his band Vaudou Game came to seek out. The original vibrations of Lomé’s sound, resonating within the studio space, an undercurrent pulsing within the walls, the floor, the entire atmosphere. A presence at once electrical and mystical, sourced through the amps that had never really gone cold, despite the deep sleep that they had been forced into. In taking over the studio’s 3000 square feet, enough to house a full orchestra, Vaudou Game had the space necessary to conjure the spirits of voodoo, those very spirits who watch over men and nature, and with whom Peter converses every day.

For the most authentic of frequencies to fully imbibe this third album, Peter Solo entrusted the rhythmic section to a Togolese bass and drum duo, putting the groove in the expert hands of those versed in feeling and a type of musicianship that you can’t learn in any school. This was also a way to put OTODI on the path of a more heavily hued funk sound- the backbone of which maintains flexibility and agility when moving over to highlife, straightens out when enhanced with frequent guest Roger Damawuzan’s James Brown type screams, and softens when making the way for soulful strings. Snaking and undulating when a chorus of Togolese women takes over, guiding it towards a slow, hypnotic trance.

Up until now, Vaudou Game had maintained their connection to Togo from their base in France. This time, recording the entire album in Lomé at OTODI with local musicians, Peter Solo drew the voodoo fluid directly from the source, once again using only Togolese scales to make his guitar sing, his strings acting as channels between listeners and deities…

hotcasarecords.com

Ebo Taylor - Yen Ara

Conquering lion of Highlife Music, Ebo Taylor has truly seen it all and done it all. The 83-year-old Saltpond based musician, songwriter and composer is just about to begin another world tour as he promotes his latest body of work. The 9-track album titled, Yen Ara, released via Mr Bongo in march of 2018, sees him translating various knowledge bases encoded in traditional Fanti music in contemporary Ghanaian highlife as well as experimenting with certain new rhythmic forms through signature, horn-dominated composition. The album, eagerly anticipated and brilliantly received so far is another stroke of Ebo Taylor’s genius.

At a very comfortable 41 minutes, the album begins with Poverty No Good, introduced by a solemn and choral admonition of poverty. The song, one of which Ebo Taylor composed and arranged, then roars into life with the rolling drum loops metronomed by a muffled conga and brazen horns sections, bridged by Ebo Taylor’s Pidgin English verse on the impossible nature of living with poverty. The charged tempo of the song counters the patient melody he creates with his voice and sets a tone of blending and mix which is consistent through the tape.

The next few songs, however, slope towards more polarized dance-friendly highlife and afrobeats. Mumundey for instance, feature this rousing war-like call and response refrain, sandwiched between rousing trumpet solos, one of Ebo Taylor’s well-known fatality moves. Track 3, Krumandey is more of late 70s disco and funk with a feel good atmosphere that slaps the rhythms onto listeners. The entire song rests on the strong shoulders of this punchy electrifying horns sections that season the vocals of Ebo Taylor’s son, Henry Taylor, whose strong voice rises above the cauldron of bliss on this song. It easily one of the stand out cuts on this tape.

Abenkwan Pucha, however, is the crown jewel of this album as it perfectly syncs the two critical phases of Ebo Taylor’s composition: i.e. the more traditional vocal highlife, brewed from Palmwine Music, to his jazzy funk phase which has become his signature in the African music pantheon. The song has this freshly ground feeling of warmth with yet again, the kinetic and tender horns section, as well as Tony Allen style drum pattern as Ebo Taylor in his aged, raspy voice appears to be using palm nut soup as some grand metaphor.

For casual or first time listeners, this project is by far a huge pool of highlife bliss to dive into as it partially traces the contours of this very Ghanaian genre, showing how the sound has evolved from the palm wine days, through funk and disco to the experimental, electro-based, burger highlife days. It also exhibits Ebo Taylor’s brilliance as a composer. The entire project feels well round with no gagged melodies and unessential phrases taking away from the overall sounds. Ebo Taylor along with the Saltpond City Band and producer Justin Adams, brilliantly engineered soundscapes for the narratives, with the trusted horn section as the pillar upon which the entire sonic architecture is arranged.

However, this is same compositional level, is where the magic that elevates this body of work happens. Despite having a uniquely homogenous sounds, certainly elements do stick out. A considerable chunk of the composition on this album have already appeared on previous bodies on work. In an interview with Afropop Worldwide, Ebo Taylor does admit to repurposing these classics and playing around with certain compositional element to make them fresh for today’s world. In the same interview, he also mentions the another chunk of the album came from songs sung by various Asafo troupes. “We try to get it into a danceable form, while keeping its history”, Ebo Taylor says in the interview. The Asafo, a group of warriors in Akan communities are one of the sub-set of Ghanaian culture that instrumentalize song. Ebo Taylor, shamelessly borrows some of their melodies and rhythms in composing this album. By so doing, he also documents and records this custom that seems to be fading away.

Yen Ara represent one of the final iterations on a quest to perfection. By dedicating his life to the music, Ebo Taylor has worked religiously to achieve what could be a near perfect sound. Not only does he achieve this on this album but he also pays homage to Fanti culture and how the communal use of music to lubricate daily chores is the main ingredient in his sonic composition. Through Yen Ara, the Asafo tradition of music remains alive, although it should make you pause and think about the current state of communal Ghanaian musical culture.

dandano.org 

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The horns breaking through the beautifully composed opening track is akin to the sunshine through a cloudy day. The effervescent jingles of the music is irresistible and blissful. Drenched in both hyper-energy and mellow grooves, Ebo taylor and his Saltpond City Band delivered one of his most albums in his catalogue.

The 81 year old indefatigable musician is a known pioneering figure within the afrobeat circles and highlife music in general.

”Yen Ara”, his latest project is a live recorded album produced by Justin Adams. The live recording session took place at the Electric Monkey Studio in Amsterdam. The themes on the album bothers on tradition, culture, life and heritage.

Here’s a track-by-track breakdown of the album.

Poverty No Good

A call and response song with a pidgin title. It carries a triumphant horn section with adowa rhythms bubbling across the song. ‘In this man’s world, life’s is how you make it, no 1 wants to be poor’; his old voice echoes before the Fante phrase ‘ohia be y3 ya (poverty will be painful) shut shop on the first verse.

Ebo Taylor sings in both Fante, English and pidgin. The poignant message in this song is: don’t be poor; strive for riches.

Mumudey Mumudey

Mumudey Mumudey is quintessentially a jama tune. It breathes the potency of Osode-a traditional highlife folk music popular amongst fishermen and carries enchanting grooves.

The song opens with a famous phrase made popular by Gyedu Blay on ‘Simigwa Do’. Ebo Taylor compares himself with the handsome and dapper character-who rocks good clothes and sunglasses- with himself and his family members. The afrobeat elements are as boisterous as ever.

Krumandey

From the lyrics, one is left thinking ‘Krumandey’ as a type of dance. He urges all ‘little children to play the game’. Perhaps it’s an old game popular during his young years. It’s sound like a plea to go back to picking some of the traditions of old as well.

Aboa Kyirbin

The uptempo tone of the three previous songs wanes, paving the way for this mid-tempo tune. Soulful horns open the song. The vocals are gentle and soft. This song talks of the need to cast away a spell with Aboa Kyirbin which he describes as a worm eating creature.

The song, like many highlife tunes carry a philosophical depth. Aboa Kyiribin refers to a type of poisonous snake. Employed as a metaphor to reference how the deeds of people is harming this country, Ebo Taylor calls for the snake that is now feeding on worms (a very strange happening) to be sacrificed to cast away the ills bedevilling the country.

This point is validated by these lyrics (translated from Fante): fellow citizens, we need to sacrifice aboa kyirbi (snake) to cast away a spell. This call elicit a response from his singers: ‘my country Ghana drenched in tears. ‘’Abro Kyirbin’’ qualifies as both a political and social call for the right actions to be taken to ameliorate the sufferings we have contributed in creating. Unlike other songs that plays to end, this ends abruptly.

Mind Your Own Business

This song picks up from the up-tempo vibrations of the first three records. You hear the emotive guitar works of Uncle Taylor who, after a minute of renditions of danceable rhythms, repeatedly sings ‘don’t let my business be your business because ‘I’m too strong for you. So please don’t judge me’.

He’s preaching about ignoring criticism and living your life: ‘All which you think is my downfall, but blessings dey drop like rainfall/music is my weapon and I’m doing what I want’. The guitar chords after the second verse and the horn section is as gentle as it can ever get.

The simple sing along chorus reminds me of another beautiful composition by now defunct Marriot International Band in the mid-90s with same title.

Ankona’m

Song title translate from Fante to English as ‘lonely person’. Derived from a popular wise saying, he highlights the plight of the lonely person in this world as the lines of the song reveal: ‘I’m a lonely man, who’ll help or speak for me when I’m in trouble’. The lonely man doesn’t have friends or family to support him and mostly the society shuns him.

‘’Ankona’m’’ has a jazzy- highlife feel. His singing evokes a tone of sombreness. The instrumentation accompanying this song is mellow and swingy. The guitar riffs from Ebo Taylor whizzes across the soft percussion drums with grace. The pain in his voice can’t be missed.

Abenkwan Puchaa

Now, this song celebrates one of the most prominent soups on the menu list in many Ghanaian homes. ‘Abenkwan’ refers to palm nut soup. On the song, he describes a mouth-watering palm soup with beans, mushroom, akrantie, crab, snail, okro as essentials. This song validates the ‘fante-ness’ of Ebo Taylor- he loves good food.

Yen Ara

The mini-climax of the beat at the beginning; the bassline that reverbs across momentarily; the long solo horn section permeating across the serenity of the drums without any disturbance. All these coalesce to hand “Yen Ara”, the album title its grace.

“Yen Ara” (We) is an ode to his hometown of Cape Coast-a historic town in the Central Region with the crab as a symbol. It is said that, the 17 clans of Cape Coast (known locally as Oguaa) won a battle against thousands of men- a reference to their victories against the Ashantis during the colonial era.

It’s a song that reflect the history and formidability of the people of Oguaa. Yen Ara is the shortest song on the album. It plays for just 3 minutes 11 seconds.

Abaa Yaa

‘’Abaa Yaa, come here. She has a University education. Unbeknownst, she can’t speak Fante’’. These are the opening lines on Uncle Taylor’s closing song “Abaa Yaa”. He pivots two scenarios to capture what he thinks is an erosion of our tradition and culture, including our language. He cites how a lady-Auntie Lizzy- finished basic school yet can’t speak Fante (her local dialect). Abaa Yaa is actually a remake of an old tune with same title, found on his ”Life Stories: Highlife and Afrobeat Classics 1973-1980” release.

Contrasting these scenarios with the action of a proper Englishman who drinks tea with fried plantain balls. For Ebo Taylor, we should safeguard our culture and identity. This theme has been a favourite of his and seem to be borrowed from his song ‘Ohy3 Atare Gyan’.




“Yen Ara” is a well-conceived and excellently executed album with variants of musical influences he has been part of since he began some six decades ago. It shares elements of highlife, afrobeat, jazz and swings within the scope of mellow, mid-tempo and high tempo rhythmic detonations.

His style of blending his mother tongue of Fante with pidgin and English is indicative of his desire to keep it both Ghanaian and African as well as global.

The performance by his band, Saltond City Band- a handpicked group of musicians including two of his sons is as entrancing as the overall work on the album.


culartblog.wordpress.com

The unstoppable renaissance of Afrobeat

(Translated with googletranslate from German magazine WELT)

He was pastor's son, polygamist, pothead and the inventor of a novel style of music: with his Afrobeat Fela Kuti reconciled Africa and the West - at least on the dance floor. A tribute.

He would never die, said Fela Kuti. He had his middle name Ransome, a slave name, exchanged for Anikulapo, and this name means that he carries the death in his bag, so he could not harm him. When Fela Kuti died on August 3, 1997, at the age of 58, of AIDS, he was actually far more alive than in previous years. More than a million people populated the streets when his body was laid out in the Lagos stadium. No one went to work for two days, and for once there were hardly any crimes. Even the gangsters and petty criminals who loved Fela Kuti so much should all have been busy dealing with their grief.

There was the loss of a great musician, composer and rebel. In the early 1970s, Kuti invented Afrobeat, a synthesis of highlife, jazz and funk, and released more than 50 albums during his career. He headed two of the most influential bands in African pop music with Africa '70 and Egypt '80; He maintained a community in the middle of Lagos for his musicians, the family and all who wanted to be there, a commune he called the Kalakuta Republic and declared it an autonomous state territory.The amazing thing is that his fame has continued to grow steadily ever since. Jay-Z and Will Smith have produced this with a number of Tony's excellent Broadway musical "Fela!". Last year saw the wonderful documentary "Finding Fela!" By Academy Award winner Alex Gibney. And the New York label Knitting Factory makes Kutis music accessible again in all dosage forms. Questlove of the Roots, Ginger Baker and most recently Brian Eno have curated magnificent vinyl boxes. The label is currently releasing Fela Kuti's albums as new prints, also on vinyl.

He was Nigeria's public enemy number one and has been arrested more than a hundred times. After releasing his hit "Zombie" in 1976, which was not friendly with the military dictatorship, a thousand soldiers stormed Kalakuta, threw his old mother out of the first-floor window and set fire to the buildings.

Months later, when the mother died as a result of her injuries, he carried her coffin to the official residence of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and released the album "Coffin For Head Of State." But Kuti was also an avid stoner, smoking nonstop bags of gigantic proportions, as well as a zealous polygamist who married 27 women in a ceremony in 1978, which is said to have earned him a temporary entry in the Guinness Book of Records.

You could think of Fela Kuti as a particularly peculiar mix of Duke Ellington, James Brown, Bob Marley, Nelson Mandela, and Hugh Hefner, and would not even half-do it justice.

The legend of Lagos

Kuti is born on October 15, 1938 as Olufela Olusun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti in Abeokuta as the fourth of five children of a Nigerian middle-class family. His father Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti is a Protestant pastor, his mother Funmilayo a well-known political activist, winner of the International Lenin Peace Prize and first woman of Nigeria with a driver's license.

At 19 Kuti is sent to London to study medicine or law, but ends up at the conservatory and studies composition, trumpet and piano. When searching for accommodation, he experiences racism ("no blacks, no dogs"), gets to know the music of Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, founds his first band with the Koola Lobitos. In 1963 he returns to Lagos, but the high-life jazz of his Koola Lobitos does not really want to ignite the audience there, because jazz takes the high life momentum and people want to dance above all else. The necessary inspiration comes in the form of the records of James Brown, but only a ten-month trip with the entire band to America completes the music of Fela Kuti.


Because his new girlfriend, Black Panther activist Sandra Smith, introduces him to the writings of Malcolm X and Eldridge Cleaver, Kuti begins to develop African consciousness beyond Africa, and uploads his pieces with political content. As Smith, who now calls herself Sandra Iszadore, recalled in an interview, he previously sang songs about soup, among other things. If he had continued to sing about food, his career would probably have been calmer, but great artists are not only the product of their talents, but also the product of their time - and the times were not good.

Songs like circles

After Nigeria was released from independence in 1960 by the British Parliament, it experienced from 1966 an almost absurd sequence of military dictatorships. Constantly, new generals came to power, while the oil boom gave the country a wealth of which the people, thanks to its elite, had practically nothing. Nigeria was marked by corruption, mismanagement, poverty, and violence, and Fela Kuti felt called to take care of it.

But you can not imagine his protest songs as "Tell me where the flowers are" -song, which asks about the meaning of wars and is supported by the desire to be tolerated, please. Kuti was not an intermediary. He attacked. And so that everyone understood his concerns, he sang them in Pidgin English, which was common in the whole Anglo-African language area.

A kuti composition lasts about 18 minutes on average, but can easily be twice as long. It usually starts with a theme that is set by a few instruments, gradually adding other building blocks, with a single instrument never playing the full melody, but only a small part, resulting in the songs constantly moving but the whole thing remains in a tight rhythmic corset. The brass breaks in, the sound gets bigger, and if you think the song might be over, it's not even started yet.

At some point, half of the song is almost over, Kuti also turns on. He declares more than he sings, the chorus speaks up, there is a back and forth of voices, then again the brass, the guitars and the beat, which goes on and on. When the American singer Jim James of the band My Morning Jacket was interviewed about Kuti, he said that he always had to think about the setting of circles in this music. It turns and turns, and you do not want it to stop.

What a stage band, better than the Beatles!

The attraction of this music to other artists was enormous, especially on western ones. Almost every night Kuti played with his band Africa '70 in his nightclub "African Shrine" in Lagos and received among others James Brown. Stevie Wonder also came by and also Paul McCartney. He had fled to Lagos because he wanted to record the album "Band On The Run" with the Wings.

McCartney still remembers the evening at Shrine. In a video interview that can be seen on YouTube, he says, "It was the best live band I've ever seen." There, he also heard his favorite kuti song that he never found a recording of but he still remembers the reef. McCartney sits down at the keyboard and starts playing. It is the song "Why Black Man Dey Suffer".

Without ever having heard it since then, Paul McCartney still has it in his ear forty years later.

Originally published in German @welt.de 

Hoodna Orchestra - NO A​.​C

Hoodna Orchestra, also known H.A.O, is an Israeli Afrobeat band from the south part of Tel-Aviv, formed in 2013. Inspired by the humming and clanging of carpentry and metal workshops.

Originally conceived as a traditional Afrobeat group, H.A.O quickly developed a far spikier sound, often played faster and more emphatically than many of their contemporaries. They have also proven adept at broadening their sound by incorporating influences from a variety of other genres. H.A.O.’s rousing live shows quickly attracted an enthusiastic following.

Debut EP: “No A.C.”

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