Fela Kuti: More Than A Musician
Nigerian multi-instrumentalist Fela Kuti was a visionary bandleader, the creator of the high-energy Afrobeat genre. Beyond music, he was a fearless political activist who used his platform to expose government corruption, military abuse, and post-colonial oppression in Nigeria. His is a name I am very familiar with, but I wanted to find out more about his life and work...
Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti was born into an upper middle class Nigerian family in October 1938. We are in Abeokuta, the capital of Ogun State in southwestern Nigeria - a vibrant hub of British colonialism in West Africa.
Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, his father, was an Anglican minister, a school teacher and also the first president of the Nigeria Union of Teachers. His mother, Funmilayo, was an anti-colonialist and feminist and was one of a wave of forward thinking, strong women in west Africa, whose outlooks pre-dated the gender theories of western world. Their movement was centred on women’s rights, autonomy and anti-colonialism - trying to reinstate the female authorities that had been stripped away by the British. Funmilayo led the Abeokuta Ladies Club and it seems there could be a full history article just on her.
So, it was an interesting childhood for the young Fela; two fairly politically radical parents, two brothers who would become medical doctors and a cousin (Wole Soyinka) who won the literature Nobel prize in 1986.
There was also music in his family, with paternal grandfather Josiah, considered a musical pioneer in the region, setting Christian hymns to Yoruba music. By 1958 Fela was proficient enough to get an invite, via his older brother (Beko, studying medicine), to study music at Trinity College of Music in London. It was there that he formed one of his finally early bands, Koola Lobitos, which played a jazz - highlife fusion (highlife is a Ghanaian mix-up of jazz and local sounds).
In 1960, he got married to Remi, and they would have three children together - Yeni, Femi and Sola - two of whom would also go on to have a career in music. In 1963, with Nigeria freshly independent, he returned home, reforming Koola Lobitos and also learning radio production for a job with the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation.
The style of music he was developing became known as Afrobeat - a heady concoction of jazz, funk, highlife, calypso, apala (a Nigerian rhythm) and traditional Yoruba music. In 1969, he took his band to the States, spending ten months in Los Angeles, which is where he discovered the Black Power movement. The politics would influence his music and his band became Nigeria 70, but US immigration heard the band did not have work permits and were on their tail.
Fela & Africa 70: Shakara (audio only)
The backbone of this sound came from his legendary drummer, Tony Allen, who used sparing backbeats, with a shuffle and a tight swing. There were similarities with reggae stylings, but the technical description I read went waaay over my head - suffice to say, he was a very skilled player. The band would also often include two baritone saxophones, where most African styles use one.
His development of Afrobeat also took much from nearby Ghana and not just from Nigeria; the weaving in of this highlife music came from the likes of ET Mensah, Ebo Taylor and Pat Thomas.
His lyrics were a tool for him to deal with political and social injustice, corruption and human rights abuses. Zombie was a satire of a soldier's blind obedience of what their officers told them and it would become a focal point for all opponents of the government of the time. On returning home, the band switched to being Africa 70 and moved away from themes of love, to ones about social issues.
Fela Kuti: Zombie (it's 12 minutes - but includes notes on what the song is about)
He would also form the Kalakuta Republic, a sort of commune, with a recording studio and would be home for the band and many others connected to them. The Republic was located at 14A Agege Motor Road in Lagos; its name comes from Yoruba and roughly translates to “house of chaos” – certainly an apt description of the site. It was the place where Africa 70 would do much of their rehearsing and recording, but was also a place where other musicians, poets and artists would congregate. They would often play gigs at the Afro-Spot, a nightclub he had set up in Empire Hotel (later called the Afrika Shrine).
Fela Kuti & Egypt 80: Beasts Of No Nation (live in Paris, 1984)
Fela also decided that he would change his name to Anikulapo, which has the literal meaning of “he who carries death in his pouch”, which can be taken to mean, “I will be the master of my own destiny and decide when it is time for death to take me”. At that time he also dropped the hyphenated Ransome at the end of his surname, viewing it as something of a slave name.
He made the decision to sing his songs mainly in Pidgin English, to help ensure that people from across Africa could potentially enjoy his music. But while it may have been popular with the people, Kuti’s music was not well received by the Nigerian government, who often raided his commune.
His criticism of the regime grew more obvious with 1977’s Zombie, which criticised Nigerian soldiers and their methods. This led to a raid on the commune by 1,000 soldiers, during which Kuti was badly beaten and his elderly mother killed, after being thrown from a window! The commune was burnt to the ground and all of his recording equipment and tapes were also destroyed.
In response, Kuti took his mother’s coffin to some barracks in Lagos, placing it in front of General Obasanjo’s residence. He would swiftly write two songs for the occasion - Coffin for Head of State and Unknown Soldier (an inquest said the burning of the soldier was down to an ‘unknown soldier’).
While the commune building was never rebuilt after the fire, there is now a Kalakuta Museum, opened in 2012 in the nearby district of Ikeja. There is also a rehearsal space next door, now used by Seun Kuti and Egypt 80.
1978 would be an interesting year. He made the somewhat symbolic decision to marry no less than 27 women, to both mark the anniversary of the commune raid, and to protect him from false claims that he was kidnapping women. He would later adopt a more modest system of having only 12 wives at any given time.
Fela Kuti: Why Black Man Dey Suffer (official visualiser)
His two concerts of the year were also full of incident; one in Accra ended with a riot that caused him to be banned from Ghana; while one at the Berlin Jazz Festival ended with his band largely deserting him, owing to rumours that he was planning to take all of the concert money to fund a presidential campaign.
The following year he formed his party, Movement of the People (MOP), but this was not long-lived party, owing to his constant confrontation with the government.
Fela & Africa 70: V.I.P. (live at the Berlin Jazz Festival, 1978)
Kuti signed with Arista Records in London in 1980, with Black President following in February 1981 and a subsequent first ever European tour - consisting of four concerts in a week (Paris, Brussels, Vienna, Strasbourg), with a band and entourage of around 70 people.
His constant opposition eventually got him a spell in prison, when President Buhari’s government locked him up for currency smuggling in 1984. He was designated as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, seeing the jailing as being politically motivated. It would take 20 months for his release, when General Babangida authorised it (who was by now the military ruler of the country, following a coup).
With Egypt 80 he would continue touring the US and Europe, but remained politically active. He got a slot at Amnesty’s 1986 A Conspiracy of Hope concert at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, alongside Bono, Carlos Santana and the Neville Brothers.
Fela Kuti died in August 1997, with his brother Olikoye stating that it was a result of heart failure due to complications with AIDS (his widow denied he had AIDS).
He was a showman, with wild concert performances. His band was often packed out with female singers and dancers, dressed colourfully with liberally applied makeup all over to show their creativity.
As well as his mother, his political activism was also fuelled by US singer Sandra Izsadore, and this activism was core to his being, from the early 70s to his death, especially looking at mistreatment of his fellow Nigerians, and often stating that the legacy of colonialism was at the heart of much of the socio-economic and political chaos faced in Africa. And while he had that 20 months in prison (and some other shorter stints), he was actually arrested more than 200 times over the years.
His music was a big part of the convergence between the music of Africa, its art, and as part of socio-political conversation. He was a fan of Pan-Africanism and socialism - wanting one united, democratic African republic. He also saw the importance of protecting traditional religions and cultural ways of life across the continent from cultural imperialism.
Over his life, Kuti ended up putting out more than 50 records, fusing music with ideology.
Fela posthumously received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammy’s earlier in 2026, a move his former manager Rikki Stein called, “better late than never” and felt that it showed some belated interest in African music (they also introduced a Best African Performance category in 2024). He became the first African to get such a lifetime award, a mere 63 years after the first one was handed out to Bing Crosby.
In response to this award, Nigerian President, Bola Tinubu said of him, “He was a fearless voice of the people, a philosopher of freedom, and a revolutionary force whose music confronted injustice and reshaped global sound.”
Mark Wilberforce (BBC) said that “Repression only amplified his influence.” And he was a striking figure on stage, bare-chested more often than not, and draped in West African prints. That identity was at least in part down to Lemi Ghariokwu, who designed more than half his album covers from 1974 to 1993.
Paul McCartney once told of his visit to the African Shrine club to see Kuti, “the music was so incredible that I wept. Hearing that was one of the greatest music moments of my life.”
Paul McCartney on Fela Kuti (interview clip)
His legacy can be felt right through to today, with the likes of Burna Boy and Kendrick Lamar owing at least some debt to his path.
Tony Allen & Hugh Masekela: Lagos (Never Gonna Be The Same) (official video of their tribute to Fela and his contribution to Lagos)
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