Fela Kuti's Role in the Development of Music and Politics in Nigeria - Coursework Example

Fela Kutis Role in the Development of Music and Politics in Nigeria Introduction Even in Death, Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s fame ranks higher than several musicians in Nigeria do. Kuti’s great reputation is merely not because of his dramatic performance on stage or his entertaining expertise. However, his high ranking is because of his enjoyable, irresistible, uncompromising, harsh and provocative condemnation of the tyranny of the Nigerian ruling class and his hypocrisy of the affluence. Fascinatingly, the atmosphere of mystery surrounding the Afro-beat maestro, Fela Anikulapo Kuti concealed his real picture and made for him an exploding myth that lives until the present day. Despite being born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransone-Kuti, Fela lets go of “Ransome” as his family name with the claims that it was a slave name, and instead replaced it with “Anikulapo.” He went further and adopted the name “Abami Eda” meaning supernatural being. Regardless of his weird and unconventional behaviors, Fela surpassed his contemporaries with his brave vocal human rights activist activities. The research paper looks at Fela Kuti’s role in politics and music in Nigeria. It does this by thoroughly examining the inception of Afro-beat, and Fela’s musical influence from Africa and other international musicians. In addition, the paper points out Fela’s relationship with Tony Allen, and his role as an activist and as a political leader. Finally, the paper uses examples to reveal the messages that Fela delivered through his music and how he applied music as a tool for social change. The Birth of Afro-beat Afrobeat is a creative form of music created from an orchestra that was more westernized. The music form just like previous forms used saxophones, trumpets, and keyboards. Afrobeat is a fusion of indigenous Yoruba rhythms and the highlife, melodramatic chants, the funky soul of James Brown, and Jazz. In the birth of Afro-beat, Fela’s music changed to become more muscular, flexible, with the plain and chant able pidgin assisting in an emphasis on spontaneity and improvisation in subject’s choice. Equally, Fela’s afrobeat music articulated individual instruments in the band, and incorporated scat singing whereby nonsense syllables, yodels, whoops and other vocal devices replaces a song’s words. As Fela examined the unfair social relations of a dependent capitalist state, his songs subject changed and were more comparatively cerebral, with the pedagogic mode of delivery. Fela’s whole music changed to become corporeal and called on more physicality in dancing, with the presentation of more sensational and dramatic features that could underwrite mass accessibility among Fela’s immediate base of main audience. Fela’s main audience base stretched across the Western educated people, from dropouts of elementary school to university professors (Stewart 100). Prior to Afrobeat, music that were in existence like highlife, and particularly Apala and Juju created for the Yoruba body a tempo that had idealized a stately elegance, royalty in bearing, and a majestic gravity. These received accomplishment by the panegyric form of the music whereby only the superlative praise was due to the wealthy and the elite in the society. Juju music is ultimately impotent outside of a context that mythologies and glorifies status and wealth and, in the end sees poverty as a curse. Juju music proposes to its listener’s visions and dreams of grandeur that is everlasting. Afrobeat undermines this built native ideal with a rude tempo that is much faster. In Afrobeat, the voluminous agbada intended to rock gently to the beat is not regarded (Cheryl and Emma 45). Afrobeat persistently abuses and lampoons the same wealthy class showered with praises in Juju. Afrobeat interpolates one as a member of the oppressed lower class, and consistently reminds one of the harshness of their life, and shows those who profit from the harsh system in a bad light. The horizons of Afrobeat are transnational, transcultural, and transcontinental, and it remains the Nigerian music that is most cosmopolitan. Fela Kuti’s musical influences Fela Koti traveled to the United States in 1969. Fela’s experience during the trip decisively influenced his music and shaped his grouping cultural nationalism (Veal 10). Fela visited the United States for one full year, a period in which he familiarized himself with the latest style of Jazz. Fela exposed himself to the free jazz typified by the work of Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, and Ornette Coleman. Besides representing a radical idea through Jazz traditions, the style equally carried strong political associations. Based on the cultural awakening that was evident in the United Sates in this period. Several African-American musicians of free jazz intended to devise a music logic that was not western, and that would resist exploitation and comprehension by white musicians. As the free-jazz influence on Fela took place simultaneously with the political awakening, it was clear that Fela was most likely going to incorporate this style in his subsequent works. During this period, there was also indirect jazz influence on the subsequent works of Fela. These influences were transmitted via blues music and rhythm. The best instance for this is the music of James Brown whose work had received increased politicization by the time Fela visited the United States. Brown incorporated elements of free jazz into his style to the extent that they would reinforce the political mood. The influences of these varied stages of jazz are manifested in Fela’s artistic advancements, through his Afrobeat music of the 1970s. Afrobeat merged James Brown’s style of the rhythm section, an approach of the harmonic model; ensemble passage and jazz styled instruments solos and indigenous percussion. Fela’s work represents a significant contribution to the development of Jazz. Fela Kuti’s relationship with Tony Allen Tony Allen, a key African musician and world set player, helped Fela in developing Afrobeat. Both Fela and Tony studied and performed jazz music. Fela and Tony emerge as dedicated seekers of music who tirelessly struggled to develop and protect their art. They had an intact relationship concerning music, and Fela Kuti once said that there would be no Afrobeat without Tony Allen (Brett 692). Tony regarded as the rhythmic engine of Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat in collaboration with Fela led to the success of Afrobeat. Fela Kuti’s Role as a Political Leader and Activist Fela acknowledged and traced the cause of socio-economic and political problems faced by the people of Africa o the colonial period (Adams 85). Just as Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, opines in his boom Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism. Fela held the believe that, even though, the colonial rule had formally ended in Africa, the Western imperial ascendency of Africa continued through the government that was invincible and indirect monopoly of the African economy. Considerably, the post nostalgic attachment to the legacies of the colonizers was not separable from the colonial period. Therefore, several societies in Africa came out of the colonial era with confusion and cultural hybridization. Numerous songs by Fela responded to culture alienation and hybridization that had left the people of Africa in confusion. In the song Colonial Mentality as Stone records, Fela describes African people who are not willing to break free from the colonial rule as “colonial man”: “He be say you are colonial man/ It seems you are a colonial man You don be slave man before/You were a slave before Them don release you now/You have been released But you never release yourself/But you refused to liberate yourself.” Further, Fela uses his music as a tool for social change. He satirically depicts the effect of the culture of the Western people on African women in his song, Lady. Fela draws a large contrast between deluded hybrids “ladies” and African women. According to him, African women need to be submissive, unlike the ladies that he considered to be arrogant. He sings: “She go say him equal to man/She will say she is equal to man She go say him get power like man/She will say she has power like man She go say anything man do himself fit do ... /She will say anything man can do, she too can do.” The worst root of socio-economic dissimilarity in Africa as a whole and specifically Nigeria is corruption. Corruption is any behavior that is anti-social and conferring improper benefits contrary to moral and legal norms. These behaviors undermine the capacity of the authority to secure the welfare of all citizens. Some of Fela’s songs talk about corruption realities and socio-economic inequality in Africa and Nigeria. In Fela’s Authority to steal, he identifies various categories of theft in Nigeria. He opines that there is armed robbery, petty thievery and authority stealing. Whereas petty thief entails pickpocket, armed robbery includes the use of a dangerous weapon to acquire another person’s property by force. Pen robbery or authority robbery involved the use of office or power to steal from the government or public. Conclusion Fela Kuti was a Nigerian musical legend and a staunch human right activist. His efforts and views on human rights were a mixture of societal influences and personal principles. Indeed, Fela was a man of complex character who exhibited the conflict between modernism and tradition, foreign and indigenous cultures and effects of an identity crisis in Africa through his songs. Being a courageous epitome, Fela used his songs superbly to educate and encourage the oppressed African people while fighting for their rights. Fela Kuti is a one in a lifetime musician who was an asset in every aspect. Works Cited Adams, Sarah. Black President: The Art and Legacy of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti; This Is Lagos: Yabis Night, Music and Fela. African Arts 37.1 (2004): 83-95. Brett, Thomas. Tony Allen: An Autobiography of the Master Drummer of Afrobeat. Popular Music and Society 37.5 (2013): 690-692. Johnson-Odim, Cheryl, and Nina Emma Mba. For Women and Nation: Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti of Nigeria. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1997. Stewart, Alexander. Make It Funky: Fela Kuti, James Brown And The Invention Of Afrobeat. American Studies 52.4 (2013): 99-118. Stone, Ruth M. The Garland Handbook of African Music. 2nd Ed. New York: Garland, 2000. Print. Veal, Michael. ‘Jazz Music Influences on the Work of Fela.’ Glendora Review 1.1 (1995): 8-13. Read More