Introduction
Fela Kuti is a Nigerian musician, composer, and multi-instrumentalist also known as the pioneer of the Afrobeat genre back in the 1950s-1980s. Kuti’s contribution to African music is often compared to Bob Marley’s contribution to reggae: they were both spiritual leaders, visionaries, and prophets of their genre. Kuti created the Afrobeat sound that has not only made it to the 21st century but also helped to develop all contemporary forms of Black music, from funk to electronic. Not only was he prolific with a discography of more than 60 albums but also an ardent political activist who was fighting against political corruption. For his political and social activism, Fela Kuti even received the informal title of “Black president” in his home country. “Fela Kuti: Music is the Weapon” is an essential documentary for anyone who would like to understand the musician’s life, vision, and legacy. Shot in Lagos, Nigeria, at the peak of Kuti’s career, the film contains a series of heartfelt, sincere, and courageous interviews with the pioneer of the Afrobeat genre. This paper reviews the documentary and explains Fela Kuti’s contribution in the context of diverse traditional African music.
The Legacy of Fela Kuti
Since the 1980s, Fela Kuti has served as an inspiration for several films and even a Broadway play. However, nothing provides an experience as raw, arresting, and intimate as music Is the Weapon shot by two French directors Jean-Jacques Flori and Stéphane Tchalgadjieff in 1982. Not only did they have a chance to be with the musician instead of exploring his life retrospectively: they accompanied him during one of the most essential and formative experiences of his life.
In the late 1960s, Kuti visited Los Angeles, where he found congenial activists and became radicalized by the American Black Power movement (Ogbar 87). That was when his political views crystallized: he believed in the importance of fighting European imperialism and reviving African artistic and religious traditions (Ajayi 46). Shortly after his return to Lagos, Kuti founded a commune and a political party with a promise to become the next Nigerian president (Drewett 196). The musician never made good on that pledge; in actuality, he spent years persecuted and having confrontations with the authorities.
The question arises as to what in Kuti’s upbringing and background compelled him to express himself through music and political work. The musician was born into an influential family where both of his parents were politically and socially opinionated. His father was a school headmaster and Protestant minister, and his mother was at the forefront of the fight for women’s rights in Africa (Collins 100). Initially, Kuti was sent to London to study medicine like his brother, but his love for music prevailed. Soon the musician enrolled in the Trinity College of Music, where the trumpet was his preferred instrument (Collins 152). In the years to follow, Kuti returned to West Africa, lived in Ghana and Nigeria, and invented a new musical direction that he called afrobeat.
Music Is the Weapon showcases the contrasts that are integral to the city of Lagos. The documentary pays a lot of attention to the urban spaces and shows the dangers of the country’s largest city. It is unsafe, brutal, and violent; it also never sleeps and never lets one let down their guards. The Shrine, a music club where Kuti was performing, is an oasis among this chaos. It is a safe place where people can connect and bond over music. Afrobeat gives them much-needed relief from the daily hassle.
What music Is the Weapon succeeds in demonstrating is that Kuti’s political and music identities were not separate: they were connected and interlocked. In the documentary, he ponders the role of the musician in the world: “See because when the higher forces give you the gift of music, musicianship, it must be well used for the good of humanity (“‘Music Is the Weapon’: The Must-See Fela Kuti Documentary from 1982”).” Kuti sees his talent as something that needs to be handled with care and used not only to make a profit: “If you use it for your own self by deceiving people… you will die young, you see (Onyebadi 129).” Music Is the Weapon is an attempt to show his influence and send a message of human dignity and potential.
Afrobeat and Its Influences
Today, it is believed that afrobeat has stylistic origins in fuji music and highlife with American funk and jazz influences. Some of its defining characteristics include the focus on chanted vocals, complex intersecting rhythms, and percussion (Agawu 98). One may wonder what exactly made afrobeat so beloved by Black communities all over the world and turned Kuti into the prophet of African music. Afrobeat was indeed a novel genre back in the 1960s; however, it had deep roots in centuries-old African music traditions. One of the instruments that impacted the formation of the new musical direction is the mbira.
The standard English name for the instrument is the thumb piano because it is played with thumbs and one finger. Mbira takes origin in Zimbabwe, a small South African country with a culturally diverse population (Chikowero 65). From a technical standpoint, the mbira is similar to a Western music box, as the musician produces sound by plucking flat metal strips of various lengths (Miller and Shahriari 354). However, the Zimbabwean instrument is not a literal equivalent of a music box – on the contrary, it has its own technical peculiarities. For instance, the performers often attach small seashells, pieces of metal, or even plastic bottle caps to the resonator of their instrument (Miller and Shahriari 355). This modification allows them to produce a characteristic buzzing timbre that signifies Zimbabwean mbira and sets it apart. As a result, the sounds of mbira are unique and captivating: they are bell-like, repetitive, rattling, buzzing, and mesmerizing. Because of its effect and importance, the mbira is widely used for worship and traditional rituals. The full name of the instrument is mbira dzavadzimu, which stands for “mbira of the ancestors.”
Another instrument that has great importance for modern African music is kinda, a large, heavy log xylophone with between 17 to 22 bars. The wooden bars are rested on banana tree trunks that are orthogonal to the ground for stability during performances. Akadinda is a large instrument: with its length up to seven meters, it can allow four people to play it at once. Sometimes ensembles composed of several akadindas are used: each of them has its own pitch, and together they make a harmonic sound. While many cultures of sub-Saharan Africa use xylophones of similar design, Ugandan akadindas are different from those, because they often have hollow dips in the centers of their bars (Millar and Shahriari 359). As with mbira, this peculiar construction serves to provide a specific timbre: when a performer strikes the center of a bar, the sound becomes a hollower (Miller and Shahriari 359). Another similarity to mbira is that akadinda is used in religious rituals, and playing it is seen as a way to reconnect with long-gone ancestors.
These two examples suffice to demonstrate that Fela Kuti’s musical career did not happen in a vacuum, but developed in a rich and multi-faceted musical culture of his home continent. Apart from having a multitude of African instruments and musical traditions to draw inspiration from, Fela Kuti’s approach to music is also profoundly African in a philosophical sense. The philosophy of afrobeat praises and appreciates indigenous African traditions, which, for instance, manifest in the beliefs about mbira and akadinda. This connection makes Fela Kuti not an isolated figure, but a true successor of the long history of African music and spiritual traditions that surround it.
Conclusion
Africa has a thousand-year-long musical tradition that started becoming political in the mid-20th century. At the forefront of the new African music and political activism was Fela Kuti, the younger son of a Protestant minister and a feminist. For Fela Kuti, music and political activism were inseparable: he saw his musical gift as a weapon that he could use when fighting for the good of the pan-African nation. Kuti was strongly pro-Black and saw European colonialism as the enemy to be defeated for the prosperity of the continent. His musical legacy lives to this day due to its versatility, novelty, and at the same time, loyalty to African traditions.
Works Cited
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Ajayi, Temitope Michael. “’Identity and Ideological Representation in Selected Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s Songs’’.” Journal of West African Languages, vol. 44, 2017, pp. 44-54.
Chikowero, Mhoze. African Music, Power, and Being in Colonial Zimbabwe. Indiana University Press, 2015.
Collins, John. Fela: kalakuta notes. Wesleyan University Press, 2015.
Drewett, Michael. “REVIEW| Fela: Kalakuta Notes.” IASPM@ Journal, vol. 6, no. 2, 2016, pp. 196-197.
Fela Kuti: Music Is the Weapon. Directed by Jean Jacques Flori and Stéphane Tchalgadjieff, 1982.
Miller, Terry E., and Andrew Shahriari. World Music: A Global Journey. 4th ed. Routledge, 2016.
‘Music Is the Weapon’: The Must-See Fela Kuti Documentary from 1982. 2015, Web.
Ogbar, Jeffrey OG. Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019.
Onyebadi, Uche. “Political Messages in African Music: Assessing Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Lucky Dube and Alpha Blondy.” Humanities, vol. 7, no. 4, 2018, p. 129.