Musical shows Kuti’s life to public

Broadway musicals have tackled the intrigue of love, the urban jungle and dancing Nazis with… Broadway musicals have tackled the intrigue of love, the urban jungle and dancing Nazis with equal fervor in the past, but last year a number of high-profile producers, including Jay-Z and ?uestlove, put together a show called FELA! that finally reintroduced a revolutionary from the perspective of the stage.

Fela Anikulapo Kuti wasn’t likely to raise many frat roofs before his death in 1997, but his music could dance the soles off a shoe in the 23rd century. Born in 1938, Kuti gradually accumulated a vast array of influences after forming his first band in early 1960s Nigeria. Around 1969, he started calling the fusion of funk, jazz and various indigenous styles that he played with his band — by then named Africa ’70 —  “afrobeat.”

Perhaps one of the best introductions to what this complex combo sounds and looks like is an early video made by Cream drummer Ginger Baker, who traveled throughout Africa in 1971 to learn about various rhythms and improve his technique.

Baker’s videoshows Kuti  wearing a broad smile, dancing like a maniac around a nightclub floor while singing, seeminly directing the movements of the music and his fellow dancers with a subtle ease. Movement is a word which describes the video well, and especially with such a plethora of polyrhythm — more than one “beat” going on at a time — there’s a sense of urgency that commands it.

That urgency carried over into, or perhaps from, Kuti’s ideology, which was complexly Pan-African and socialist. The very language he sang in — pidgin English, made up of proper British English and Nigerian dialects — reflected a choice on his part to communicate in the common language of Nigeria’s various groups.

His lyrics often commented on various contentious issues and, although Nigeria’s press was state-run during the 1970s, the musician would also share his opinion in print. He’d buy ad space to exploit a loophole in the system and write columns about any issue on his mind. The columns eventually stopped because of controversy, and even some members of his band left because the political pressure was getting to be too much.

With an afrobeat orchestra of guitars, keys, percussion and horns, Kuti’s songs were backed with the best supporting musicians he could find throughout his career. His kit drummer, Tony Allen, still has the impressive skill he honed in Africa ’70. The 70-year-old not only performs alongside superstars like Paul Simonon and Damon Albarn in The Good, the Bad & the Queen. Allen has also been called “perhaps the greatest drummer who has ever lived” by noted producer Brian Eno.

Kuti’s records might seem strange compared to your usual vinyl, not only because of their beautifully colorful appearance — influenced by psychadelic art — but also because most of them contain only one or two songs. With some tracks reaching almost a half-hour in length, they’re definitely still a value.

One of Kuti’s classics that’s definitely worth picking up by itself is his 1975 record Expensive Shit. The record was inspired by an incident in which police supposedly planted evidence. On the title track, the epic builds as jazzy piano and guitar chords interplay and the swarm of rhythm gradually envelops the song. When we finally hear Kuti chanting with his band, it’s almost a sensationally warm remembrance of the incident. “Water No Get Enemy,” the other song, is jazzier still and feels like a taste of Miles Davis taken with redbush tea and a James Brown chaser.

He continued to make records both with Africa ’70 and as a solo artist, until his death from AIDS complications in 1997. Only a few years later, he would reemerge through his legacy as a cultural icon to musicians, Africans and people everywhere.

The New York-based Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra took up the afrobeat mantel in 1998 and ever since have been repping Kuti and the genre around the world. They are, in fact, the performers that portray Africa ’70 on the stage of FELA! and have been joined on stage in the past by members of Kuti’s band and family.