Fela. From West Africa to West Broadway Book

Nigerian musician Fela Anikulapo-Kuti became a global superstar in the 1970s with his "Afrobeat" fusion of funk jazz and Yoruba motifs. A counter-cultural icon he scandalized Nigerian society with his pot-smoking his sexually explicit lyrics and stage act and his marriage to 27 of his dancers and back-up singers at once. And he was a staunch opponent of the Nigerian dictatorship and Western neo-colonialism in Africa (one song denounced water and electricity shortages the United Nations Special Program for Third World Countries and the replacement of food crops by cash crops) a stance that earned him a series of beatings and imprisonments. This collection of essays and interviews explores the larger-than-life persona of Fela and his impact on world music and Nigerian culture. Paperback Joseph Patel posits Fela's music as the &quotprimordial mass&quot from which house techno and hip-hop sprang tracing his influence through the minutiae of never-released recording sessions. John Collins gives a disturbing glimpse of life at Fela's Lagos commune where he regularly had his acolytes beaten while dele jegede paints a vivid portrait of the singer's charismatic stage presence. Yomi Durotoye applies heavy-handed critical theory to Fela's political lyrics (the line &quotNotin special about uniform&quot achieves &quotthe obliteration of the space between the binary oppositions of domination&quot). The most interesting essays debate Fela's oft-expressed opinion that authentic African women are subservient to men a view vigorously contested by Nkiru Nzegwu who notes the traditional independence of Nigerian women. While the collection leaves open the question of whether drugs sex and Afrobeat contribute to a coherent world-view it provides a fascinating window onto the cultural politics of the developing world.