The Untold Truth Of Afrobeat Icon Fela Kuti

May 2024 ยท 2 minute read

Apart from Fela Kuti's classical training at Trinity College, London was a musical melting pot that provided a platform for Kuti to explore Western music trends and incorporate them into his own compositions, a habit that he would maintain for the rest of his life and which would make his music such an international success. Similarly, the British Library notes that several prominent African American artists such as Otis Redding and James Brown toured West Africa, meaning the West continued to influence Kuti on his return. But the West also offered a political awakening for Kuti, who while away from his own country was able to see Nigerian society, and Africa more generally, in sharp focus for the first time.

While on tour in the U.S. in the late 1960s, Kuti and his band made the acquaintance of numerous leading lights of the Black Panther movement, and began a relationship with one of their most prominent female members, Sandra Izsadore, who directed the musician to engage more directly with Black radicalism and post-colonial literature, according to the NME.

In an interview from the 1980s (via The Guardian), Kuti explained how he was only awoken to the colonial oppression of Nigeria belatedly: "Being African didn't mean anything to me until later in my life ... When I was young we weren't even allowed to speak our own languages in school. They called it 'vernacular,' as if only English was the real tongue." Thereafter, his songs became increasingly political, with lyrics reminding Nigerian listeners to embrace their native culture over that imposed upon them by the West.

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