Afrobeat

by Ntone Edgabe

Part 2 of 2

Special to G21 Africa

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[From Part 1:] "Howzit bru?" I would hear, in that voice of white men who believe Quentin Tarantino is the human face of God.

My eyes would meet his smile. (It's the same smile many white South Africans have when they are about to learn something, anything, from a black person. The grin we gave our mother when she first caught us with the hand in the jar. Shame.) "What's this music bru?"

Once the fatal question is asked, White Boy's face transforms into a notepad and pen, a Dictaphone, a video recorder, a CD writer and every imaginable recording equipment out of Japan.

He has clearly been touched by the music. I can tell he would rush onto the Internet to find out more, if only he knew what to ask his search engine. He is even willing to learn the steps. His eyes tell me he never wants to be in this position again. So my ego enjoys the situation for a few seconds before I mercifully lean across the turntables, as if to share a secret, and mouth off the two magical syllables:

FE-LA

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PART TWO: He also sang mostly in Yoruba, adorned traditional garb, and his lyrics celebrated Africa and the black aesthetic. Songs such as "Buy Africa, Beautiful Dancer" and "Black Man's Cry" were written during this most fertile period. But his romance with mother Africa and nationalist politics was brutally ended by the first army attack at the Kalakuta Republic in 1974, and his subsequent imprisonment.

The "fighting phase" of Fela's career clocked in with the Kalakuta Massacre of February 1977. After the death of his mother, he largely abandoned his satirical social critique for overtly confrontational political diatribes in Pidgin -- also known as West African English -- taking a harsher look at post-colonial Africa. He also replaced his band, Afrika 70 -- or rather they abandoned him for fear of political persecution, and formed the bigger Egypt 80. Musically, his songs became more structurally complex and more lengthy. Unlike the arrogantly funky Afrika 70 material, his later tunes were polytonal multi-movement themes encompassing intricate horn charts and choral singing, a symbolic return to his initial 'art music' philosophy.

Confusion Break Bone (CBD), one of his most complex compositions, illustrates this musical u-turn. Lyrically, CBD presents the morbid image of a decomposing body, a victim of the notoriously chaotic Lagos traffic -- hence Confusion -- being picked apart by thieves as a metaphor for state corruption and the decay of Nigerian body politic. More than ever, although he had began to show interest in international politics, his references came from post-colonial Lagos and urban Africa, located somewhere between the proud articulation of Negritude and Africanité (in European languages) and the poverty, corruption, diseases, and ethnic tensions that make up our realities.

The bad looking corpse he mentions in CBD could be the one I saw on Obafemi Awolowo Way -- which links Lagos Island to the suburb of Ikeja -- during my student days at University of Lagos. The agbepo (human waste carter) he refers to in International Thief Thief (ITT), when he asserts "Long time ago/Africaman we no dey carry shit/Dem come teach us carry shit..." could be the men I saw around Surulere with buckets full of brown material above their heads.

Even his famously satirical album jackets began to look more provocative post-1977. The cover of CBD for instance, depicts heads of all the Nigerian heads of state since independence with the caption: "Which head never steal?" Ghariokwu Lemi, who designed most of Fela's covers, portrays Botha, Reagan and Thatcher as bloodthirsty vampires (with horns) on the cover of Beasts Of No Nation -- released in 1989, a giant leap into darkness compared to his work during the early to mid-70s.

This is the Fela Anikulapo Kuti Island Records' boss Chris Blackwell and others attempted to buy, to fill the void of a "Third World Superstar" left by Bob Marley after his death in 1981. The genius, the charisma and the legend were there, they needed to get the man. Not an easy task as Fela was fiercely opposed to living in Europe, which would have made his career as easily manageable as that of Manu Dibango, for instance, but worse he refused to perform there. Even at the height of his popularity in the mid-70s, the Chief Priest claimed his music was meant for Africans first and foremost, keeping his global aspirations in the cupboard he owned during his first phase as "native intellectual". That plus the permanent efforts by successive Nigerian governments to keep his music only at the Afrika Shrine, and to keep the Shrine itself shut down.

When he agreed to tour Europe in 1981, Fela was advised by his promoters to lower the political emphasis in his recordings and performances to make them more palpable to Western audiences. Rightly so, these businessmen believed non-politicised European masses would have a hard time dealing with the Black President's agenda. He was also asked to give up his long-standing policy of performing only new, unrecorded material in concerts, and rather stick to his shorter, funkier and less political classics from the 70s.

During the first show in Paris, he presented his longest and most political music to date, all previously unrecorded compositions. So the 'Buy/Sell Fela' project was put on hold for another four years.

This is what keeps Fela's head and shoulders above his contemporaries. Even under the most serious financial stress, he was never prepared to record a collection of love songs like say, Bob Marley with Kaya, to follow market rules. But the biggest measure of his determination to Fight The Power may be his quasi-masochist desire to live in Nigeria besides the incessant pressure (nearly 200 court appearances and regular life-threatening, government-sponsored beatings, topped by bi-monthly trips to jail). While artists such as Franco had to kiss President Mobutu's ass to stay alive, he was routinely kicking the butt of Nigeria's governments. Fucked, both at home and away.

He also carried this uncompromising spirit onto the podium. Before every concert he rolled every possible stereotype associated with "African music" into a massive joint and smoked it on stage. Many of those who attended his shows outside Africa expected a bare-chested, spear-wielding African warrior, but saw a man dressed in Western stage clothes -- though he often claimed during yabis that the origin of his clothes should be discussed at a symposium. Those Afrocentrists who anticipated traditional music experienced an electric Western-influenced style. Those politically-minded who expected a progressive leftist ideologue witnessed an authoritarian, neo-traditionalist polygamist at work. And those, like the friendly faces on the dance floor before me, who just wanted to have a good time dancing to African pop were served heavily politicised music and sermons á la Sekou Toure.

The same Western critics who had enjoyed the joyful arrogance of Afrobeat during the 70s began to complain about his music not being "African" enough, while others remarked it wasn't "jazz" enough. The "not jazz enough" critique is related to his background as a jazz student and performer, another misunderstanding of Fela's later approach to music. No, he wasn't a virtuoso on the saxophone like John Coltrane nor was he Herbie Hancock on the keyboards - the two instruments he played during his pro career. His entire band was his instrument and his musical innovations are found in the sound produced by that 30-person instrument. Not an easy thing to explain before a concert, to a critical audience with your biog in their hands. And we know Fela didn't always care to explain, an approach he shared with legendary jazz composer Miles Davis.

In Nigeria itself, his mixture of abuse, profanity and social deviance was already a hard package for many to swallow during the 70s. Through tracks such as Expensive Shit, Mattress and Mr Grammartologylisation-alism Is The Boss, and his regular newspaper column, "Chief Priest Say," he had pushed the Nigerian moral police to its limits. With the all-out confrontational stance he adopted after 1977, he effectively consigned his music to an enforced sub-cultural location.

Eventually Blackwell and his cronies turned their predatory eyes towards another Nigerian, the self-styled "king of juju", the more "African" King Sunny Ade.

And this is just another reason behind the perceived commercial limitations of Fela's music: he couldn't be the "king of" anything but himself. King Sunny Ade could be the "king of juju music", Michael Jackson the "king of pop", Marley the "king of reggae", James Brown the "godfather of soul". Fela couldn't be the "king of Afrobeat" -- though the expression has often been used in the "world music" press -- as the genre remained his sole preserve for most of his career. Unlike other music in which innovation has occurred as a result of competition amongst the genre's leading artists, every single stylistic innovation in Afrobeat was initiated and later standardised by Fela himself. Afrobeat is simply another name for The Music Of Fela, as reads the subtitle of the Roforofo Fight album.

Even today's best known Afrobeat practitioner, Fela's son Femi, has simply taken the music back to the pre-"fighting phase": horn-driven, upbeat funky hymns minus Tony Allen's inspired drumming and his father's sardonic humour. Beng Beng Beng, his most controversial output to date -- it was banned from Nigeria's airwaves -- simply describes the sexual act in the same way his father depicted it in Na Poi twenty-four years earlier. But Femi is smarter so his songs are shorter. Though he lives in Lagos (without the hemp or the Queens), he quickly learned the dollar is more powerful than the naira so his career has a much stronger international focus than Baba's. In Paris he is "le prince de l'Afrobeat" while in Lagos he remains the "son of Fela".

"I can understand the Western mind," Femi told an interviewer, "they don't want to spend an hour trying to decide whether they like this number or not".

And even with the current resurgence of pan-African ideologies such as the African renaissance, and the recent formation of the African Union, his politics seem vague and less confrontational, but maybe reflective of a new optimism around the continent. "Blackman know yourself," he chants in an era when it is arguably the last thing black men and women wish to remember.

Femi Kuti is not only Yoruba and Nigerian, he is "African" -- in the African American sense of the word, like Erykah Badu. Like them, for them, he sings of the great past civilisations of Africa while post-77 Fela concentrated on the "Pitfalls Of National Consciousness", as Fanon would put it. Predictably, the romanticization of Africa perceptible in Femi's work and Fela's early output find a more receptive ear amongst African Americans, whereas the South Africans I spoke to respond better to the music the Black President produced during the last decade of his life.

As the allergy to public criticism takes endemic proportions amongst Southern African leaders, many South Africans begin to realise how far the envelop had been pushed long before they knew there was an envelop. Stateside though, the discourse amongst black pop artists has barely shifted from the Motherland imagery. Today's hip hoppers, just like yesterday's funksters, are still talking about reconnecting withŠthe great civilisations of the Nile.

On the other hand, Femi's retro-cosmopolitan approach has done wonders for the Anikulapo Kuti's bank account. The Music Of Fela gained new currency amongst samplers and remixers, especially in hip hop, after the revival of soul (literally) in African American pop. Lauryn Hill went back to Bob Marley and the Soulquarians (a group of producers that lead the new movement) went back to Fela.

So Femi featured on Common's Time Travelling (Tribute To Fela), and got the Roots' Ahmir "?ueslove" Thompson to remix Blackman Know Yourself on his Shoki Shoki album. Mos Def also opened his Black On Both Sides album with a sample of Fela's Fear Not For Man. Fela's beats are also de rigueur in the house/techno music world. More significantly Femi fought (and won) a battle with the French label Barclay (distributed in South Africa by Universal) for the re-release of his father's entire catalogue featuring Ghariokwu Lemi's original cover artwork -- a first for an African musician. The message is spreading. From the Shrine to the Curve.

And that's the nature of popular music. As a commercial enterprise established essentially to secure profitable returns on investments, it rarely respects the limits of national boundaries, offering new populations opportunities to escape the limits of their own societies while exposing local authorities to international censure and ridicule.

Ridiculous is exactly what the man standing before me looks like. He's one of the owners of the joint, I'm told. One of the whiteys responsible for the dark vibe. That's the problem with the concept: a darkie vibe would automatically attract darkies. This is Observatory, Cape Town, South Africa. The club has progressively gained so much colour that White Boy and his friends now stand out like Cape Town in a post-'94 South Africa. A pink island that cannot toyi-toyi to Afrobeat .

Word got to me that Mr Curve doesn't like these developments. Only the vibe was supposed to be darkie, not the crowd. Right before me, he passes his index finger across his throat in a self-explanatory gesture. For a second I'm tempted to obey the order. Literally. Then my co-DJ steps in and Fela lives 30 extra minutes. Only until 3 am. The following week the Curve will host a trance party instead.

On August 2, 1997, Fela Anikulapo Kuti died as one of the poorest Nigerian musicians. He lost everything to Power but fought till the last minute to keep the piece of land below the Shrine. Robert Mugabe must be a fan.

© Ntone Edjabe 2001

Bibliography: This Bitch Of A Life - Carlos Moore; Fela, The Life And Times Of An African Musical Icon - Michael Veal; The Wretched Of The Earth - Frantz Fanon

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NTONE EDJABE is a Cameroon-born writer and DJ based in Cape Town, South Africa. He has published in various South African newspapers including the Cape Times and the Sunday Independent. He also regularly contributes for magazines such as Jazz Heritageand Big Issue.

Ntone hosts 'Soul Makossa' on Bush Radio, the most in-depth African music programme on South African radio. He also co-owns the Pan African Market aka Kalakuta Republic in Cape Town, the country's biggest African art and crafts market and a cultural centre dedicated to the promotion of Africa's cultures. He edits an All-Africa sports magazine for young adults called Hoops Africa. This is his first article for The World's Magazine.