PROUDFLESH: A New Afrikan Journal of Culture, Politics & Consciousness

Kayode O. Ogunfolabi

Red Hot + Riot: The Music and Spirit of Fela Kuti. Various Artists. MCA Records, 2002.

Fela: From West Africa to West Broadway. Ed. Trevor Schoonmaker. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

“Music Is the Weapon,” Chiedo Nkwocha’s review of Red Hot + Riot: The Music and Spirit of Fela Kuti (MCA, 2002), dwells primarily on the HIV/AIDS awareness project in Africa (Untold 24, 2003). It gives shocking data about the current state of the infection and disease. One will not hesitate to think that the disease is ravaging Africa. The production of this CD brings artists together from around the world and across the Black Diaspora. The contributors therefore lend their own support to the HIV/AIDS awareness. We cannot fail to notice, further, that this CD occupies the place of memory which constantly reminds Black people the world over that what embattles Africa is not only a killer disease but also something historical that goes beyond the façade of the dreaded disease. Researchers of HIV/AIDS might be more productive if their methods could transcend the conventional systems of data collection and penetrate the politics of the spread of the disease. The problem of this feared disease, in other words, goes beyond the alleged need for Africans to change our lifestyles. The geographical and demographical spread of the disease speaks volumes to certain patterns of history right from the rise of the “Enlightenment.” This seeming coincidence may not suffice to make any definitive conclusions at this point; what a great mistake it would be to ignore it.

The Fela edition of Red Hot + Riot is a collection of modified versions of what could be considered the canon of Fela’s songs. Some of them, like “Gentleman,” “Zombie” and “Lady,” I will argue, form his counter-hegemonic repertoire. These three songs are by no means exhaustive of this mode of anti-establishment struggle. For Fela resonates with names like Frantz Fanon, Malcolm X, Walter Rodney, Asata Shakur and George Jackson. Fela: From West Africa to West Broadway is worth examining here in this context. Its contributors make very important analyses that are well worth engaging. Of course, I will not examine all the papers from this book: I will treat those which directly address Fela’s political and cultural philosophies and struggles.

The performances on Red Hot + Riot, where Afrobeat intersects with Hip-Hop and other Black musics, are significant. They are a reminder of the legacy of Malcolm X. He, in February 1965: The Final Speeches (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1992), demonstrates the interconnectedness of the plight of African Americans and Africans on the continent with regard to the murder of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, and the subsequent rise of military dictators. Both Hip-Hop and Afrobeat repudiate the elegant and courtly temper of mainstream music as a way of revolting against that music which seems to be the preserve of bourgeois hegemony. In order to renounce this hegemonic agenda economically and politically, both Hip-Hop and Afrobeat have famously condemned the evils of capitalism in the United States and neo-colonialism in Africa respectively.

Fela’s trip to United States would make him conscious of the liberatory commitment of the Black Panther Party. Just as the corrupt brutality of military leaders in Nigeria and Africa at large inspired him to challenge the establishment headlong. Still, apart from being influenced by Black Power struggle in the Americas, Fela is also influenced by his encounter with the music of Soul.

While it can be argued that Afrobeat has influenced Hip-Hop, the influence, according to Joseph Patel (Schoonmaker 2003), is mostly minimal. Yet, if Hip-Hop’s borrowing from Afrobeat is negligible in terms of instrumentation, costume, dance and ritualistic reference, both share common themes especially in the content of their songs and the use of counter-hegemonic language. A counter-hegemonic agenda, on thematic plane, binds Hip-Hop and Afrobeat because they both respond to similar political, social and cultural situations. The two genres speak to each other; and their similarity in this respect is so great that it overwhelms minor differences in performance. From Afrobeat’s “Pidgin English,” Jamaican “Patois” to African American “Ebonics,” Africans in Africa, the United States and the Caribbean islands radically reject colonial orthodoxy: Hip-Hop, Reggae/Dancehall and Afrobeat incorporate “imperfect” English in their assault on the violent economic and political histories that follow the spread of the English language within the metropole and beyond.

Colonial mentality among educated Nigerians is one of the evils that Fela attacks in his music. One such song featured on Red Hot + Riot is “Lady.” There it is performed by Cheikh Lo, Les Nubians and Manu Dibango. In “Lady,” Fela focuses on “educated” women who desire the kind of illusory social mobility that will have them exhibit mannerisms of the English middle-class. “Lady” is not an indictment of cultural acquisition but an attack on European middle-class mannerisms which are as awkward as they are ridiculous in this transplanted social context. Nkiru Nzegwu (Schoonmaker 2003) argues that Fela’s criticism of women of the elite class is valid but his ideal woman, submissive and subservient, is based on Western thought. She argues that African women removed from the elite circle already have economic independence and do not depend on their husbands or anybody for subsistence. Further, in her interpretation of “Lady,” Nzegwu contends that women of her generation, or more precisely her peers, do not fit Fela’s description of “African woman.” Although it is valid to claim that Fela’s ideal woman is not African but Western, it is not clear how acquiring Western education means independence: Nzegwu seems to believe that she, along with her “educated” peers, represent a liberated group of women, while claiming the status of women who do not belong in the elitist circle. While Frantz Fanon in Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 1967) may overgeneralize and romanticize Black people’s inferiority complex, some aspects of his theory may apply. Colonially educated Nigerian women may not strive towards whiteness, but they certainly strive towards a social class that shares many of the values of European middle-class. Nzegwu’s article seems confusing on this matter and may need more clarification to delineate how her independent women differ from the elite. Western education subordinates both African men and women; and it is doubtful if it can, at the same time, become the site of agency for either men or women, particularly in economic terms.

Unfortunately, in Schoonmaker’s collection and elsewhere, Fela’s women are reduced to either sex objects or women with supernatural powers. These appear to be stereotypes. The descriptions do not take the dynamy of women’s existence into consideration. Many women are indeed believed to be supernatural figures: Moremi of Ile-Ife, Efunsetan Aniwura of Ibadan, and Funmilayo Anikulapo-Kuti are some such women. If one ignores these cultural dynamics, among the Yoruba people specifically, one would certainly fall into the same intellectual quagmire into which Western anthropologists have fallen.

Funmilayo Anilulapo-Kuti, Fela’s mother, is considered to have supernatural powers and is a source of his revolutionary inspiration. Though he learns music from his grandfather, the later satiric impulse in Fela’s music comes from his mother. The Egba women’s “riot” of the 1940’s is an example. Funmilayo Anilulapo-Kuti led the Egba women against the Alake who was enforcing draconian laws just to satisfy the white man. The fact that the Alake would abdicate his throne thanks to pressure from these Egba women, led by Funmilayo Anikulapo-Kuti, shows Fela the potency of popular action against oppressive regimes. However, it has to be admitted that Sandra Izsadore also exposed Fela to Jazz, the cause of Malcolm X and Black Power philosophy. The sexual innuendo of his songs may have had the same origin. Examples of these songs can be read in Wole Soyinka’s Ake (New York: Vintage Books, 1989) where a small boy narrates how Alake tries to impose a tax on the women in spite of its inappropriateness. The songs that accompany the attacks include sexual and erotic references; they thrive most in satire where every kind of verbal assault is permissible and sexual innuendoes are commonplace. In fact, Fela’s music may have borrowed so much from the Egba women’s riot that it may be more indebted to this overlooked genre. Yet the recurrence of erotic reference in his music has made some believe that he objectified women (i.e., Denzer [Schoonmaker 2003]), despite the fact that his “queens” can be regarded as the embodiment of an important ritual performance.

The song “Gentleman,” re-interpreted by Meshell Ndegeocello and Yerba Buena on Red, Hot + Riot, addresses similar issues as “Lady.” Fela lampoons, in the complimentary case of men, a grandiose and sterile imitation of bourgeois snobbishness. Expressing a belief in the sufficiency of African cultural decorum, “Gentleman” manifests Fela’s refusal to acquiesce to neo-colonialism and cultural imperialism. It is a deconstruction of the myth of psychological and economic dependence of Blacks on the Western world.

“Zombie,” musically performed in two parts, first by Bugz in The Attic with Wunmi and again by Nile Rodgers with Roy Hargrove, reminds one of Fela’s numerous encounters with soldiers and police. The song mocks those who simply follow orders without using their initiative. It shocks Nigerians, especially in South West Nigeria, into realizing that public space was gradually becoming claustrophobic for the common Nigerian. Crucially, “Zombie” comes to us after Fela’s Kalakuta Republic has been burnt down. The Nigerian military government at that time, under the dictatorship of General Olusegun Obasanjo, saw Fela’s withdrawal from the Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC), which Nigeria hosted in 1977, as posing an enormous threat.

Fela: From West African to West Broadway discusses how the production of Fela’s albums is an artistic rendition of the brutality of the military regimes in Nigeria (Lemi [Schoonmaker 2003]). It also indicates that it is not only in the higher rung of Nigerian military oligarchy that one finds this brutal oppression of the people. Other armed sectors humiliate and brutalize no less (Collins [Schoonmaker 2003]). One important trend in this practice is the attitude of Nigeria leaders wishing to impress the international community in a way that is inimical to the safety of Nigerians. This experience partly explains the reason why the military and the police feature so much in Fela’s songs.

Mabinuori Kayode Idowu a.k.a. I. D. (Schoonmaker 2003) details Fela’s plan of action which the government was not ready to acknowledge or execute. Fela planned to re-orient Nigerians and make them aware of the continued role of colonization in their everyday social, political and cultural affairs. He also aimed to forge unity among Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora. Other important aspects of this action plan address the incorporation of the aims of the festival in the school curriculum. Fela understands the path of cultural suicide that the continent has followed but believes in a renaissance which African leaders, who then were mainly military, were not ready to support. The same Nigerian military leader who was believed to have ordered the destruction of Fela’s Kalakuta Republic is the current civilian president. The low value of the currency, unemployment, recurrent and mysterious assassinations of pro-justice activists and active political opponents are some of the recent evils that besiege Nigeria under Obasanjo’s regime. Fela’s legacy includes a re-orientation of the youth with the kind of education that will make them proud of their culture. We can say, with him, for example, “[w]hen people ask me what religion am I, I reply that I was worshipping my spirits before the English language coined out the word religion, so you cannot use the word religion to describe what I practice” (Hoskyns [Schoonmaker 2003]: 155).

“Zombie” represents a virulent reproach of the police and military regime for the mindless oppression of defenseless Nigerians. The attack on and destruction of his home, a personal experience, simultaneously produces the social commentary of this caustic song, marking Fela’s full radical turn from his early anecdotal songs to his cultural/political activism of the late 1970s (Jegede [Schoonmaker 2003]). This transition in Fela’s music is paralleled in his erotic songs, which seem to challenge certain normativized Western values in the society.

Nevertheless, Sola Olorunyomi notwithstanding (Schoonmaker 2003), Fela’s performances cannot be said to be devoid of “religious” essence. His ritualistic practices complexify a simple determination of rituals. It is the elite who are obsessed with sex. Among those outside of the elite, sex is simply part of existence. They do not have sex arbitrarily, nor do they exhibit excessive repression of sex which, among the elite, indicates an absorption of Western notions of sex and sexuality. Non-Western societies are self-regulatory and do not run wild at the sight of erotic dancers or repress their sexuality obsessively. Many experiences of life, including sex, have been theorized and organized into certain social codes.

Strangely, Yomi Durotoye (Schoonmaker 2003) argues that in “Roforofo” Fela comes to look like twins with those he fights because he could not devise strategies of transcendence; Fela fights violence with violence and, for Durotoye, becomes just like the hegemony he attacks. The critic claims furthermore that, by assuming a uniform identity that is at the same time contradictory, Fela steps into an enabling space for agency. Interestingly enough, Durotoye argues: “…by demystifying the uniform as nothing different from what the oppressed wears, Fela deauthorizes power, establishes equivalence and thereby opens up the possibility for popular resistance. Fela thus erases the demarcation between the dominant/dominated and between power/powerlessness. The obliteration of the space between the binary oppositions of domination empowers the resister to contest the force of domination on equal terms” (181). This argument conflicts with the theoretical basis for the paper which states that the hegemony determines the resisting subjects. The result is that what Durotoye explains as the ineffectuality of Fela’s methods of resistance actually encourages resistance. One needs to admit that it is possible some people might not heed Fela’s call to popular action. But it is not evident how the hegemony determines the “other,” on the one hand, and how the roforofo fight becomes the site of agency, on the other. It seems in spite of the obliteration of binary oppositions, to emphasize Fela’s supposed contradictory strategies, Durotoye has to look for an “other.” Instead of confusing revolutionary cynicism with agency, through “hybridity,” one can examine Fela’s deployment of civil disobedience as an effective method of resistance. It will also be very productive if Fela’s lifestyle is not conflated with his revolutionary cause, his songs, or his acts of civil disobedience. In Nigeria, where religions have aided political complacency and revolutionary atrophy, acts of civil disobedience can easily be misinterpreted as “other.” Once it was said that if a Nigerian were pushed to the wall, s/he would break the wall rather than confront the enemy.

There is a significant aspect of Fela: From West Africa to West Broadway that reminds one of reading Joyce Cary’s Mister Johnson (New York: New Directions Publishing, 1989). This is most true of the pieces written by Knox Robinson, Joseph Patel and John Collins. There are various references to “Heart of Darkness” kinds of representation. Many events seem to have been taken terribly out of context. And contemplating that Fela might be a “racist,” moreover, is certainly to misunderstand racism. It would also be absurd to reduce the whole of Africa, or Nigeria, with its population of more than 100 million, to a “jungle.” Such anthropological fetishism, found throughout Schoonmaker’s collection, indicates that researchers need to create their hypotheses outside of previous, inaccurate representations of Africa and its peoples.

Hence, in spite of an abundance of information on Fela and his music, some gaps need to be filled. The pieces by Patel and Dele Jegede are the ones that reflect the title of the book, Fela: From West Africa to West Broadway, more than any others. Because some of the papers are like personal accounts or personal memoirs, with no clearly stated thesis, the book seems like a random collection of writings. It would have been better had the papers been organized according to themes. Apart from these pieces, the book presents an array of interesting subjects regarding a musician of who is still little known.

With Red Hot +Riot’s combination of Afrobeat and Hip-Hop, Fela becomes the focal point for raising the awareness of what George Jackson, Assata Shakur, Malcolm X, Walter Rodney and Frantz Fanon stand for in the struggle to free all Africans from the global conspiracy of Western capital. Just as almost all these activists met violent endings (including Fanon, who was not given medical assistance at the end of his life in spite of the urgency of his condition), Fela was incarcerated about 200 times. The last one was just a few weeks before he died from complications from AIDS. The message he codified in “Gentleman,” “Zombie,” and “Lady” re-inscribes in many respects the struggles of Jackson, Rodney, Malcolm X, Shakur and Fanon in Afrobeat. By re-integrating these songs for us today, Red Hot + Riot occupies the place of memory, shouting and whispering the unfinished struggles, which have most always been the subjects of Reggae, Hip-Hop and Afrobeat…from “West Africa” to “West Broadway” and beyond.

Copyright © 2004 Africa Resource Center, Inc.

Citation Format

PROUDFLESH: A New Afrikan Journal of Culture, Politics & Consciousness: Issue 3, 2004