Musical captures political legacy of Nigerian artist, activist
By
Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
New York
Published Nov 28, 2010 9:37 PM
Over the past two years, the Bill T. Jones and Jim Lewis award-winning Broadway
production FELA! has been captivating audiences in New York City. On Nov. 13
another packed house at the Eugene O’Neill Theater sat in utter
fascination during the two-and-half-hour musical that depicts the life and
times of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, perhaps the most well-known African composer and
musician spanning the 1970s to 1990s. Fela founded Afro-beat music.
The audience was diverse, with expatriate Nigerians and other Africans from the
continent, New York residents of all backgrounds and tourists. The musical
covered the pioneering and ground-breaking compositions of Fela whose albums
sold broadly throughout Africa, Europe and the U.S.
The musical, which won three Tony awards, among others, in 2009, illustrates
not only how Fela was shaped by historical forces in Nigeria, as well as the
entire region of West Africa, but how his visit to the U.S. in 1969 impacted
his social consciousness.
When Fela was in the U.S., he was heavily influenced by the Black revolutionary
movement of the period. He was introduced to the struggles waged by the Black
Panther Party and others by his close friend Sandra Izsadore of Los Angeles,
played in the musical by Saycon Sengbloh. Video footage of the BPP is
shown.
This musical immediately grabbed the attention of the audience with the women
dancers, known in the musical as queens, moving through the aisles. The actor
who played Fela, Kevin Mambo, maintained extensive communication and direct
dialogue with the audience.
A full jazz orchestra, reminiscent of Fela’s own Africa 70 and later
Egypt 80, started playing some 15 minutes before the curtain rose. These
musicians, along with actual recordings of Fela, created a cultural atmosphere.
The musical mostly takes place in Fela’s club, The Africa Shrine. On the
theater’s walls are photos of Malcolm X, Kwame Nkrumah and projected
articles from the Nigerian press during the 1970s.
The musical makes reference to the role that international finance capital such
as BP, Shell and the International Monetary Fund has played in super-exploiting
the resources and people in Nigeria.
Whether the audience remembered the real Fela or not, the musical is an
excellent introduction or reintroduction to one of Africa’s greatest
cultural phenomena of the 20th century.
Social significance of Fela’s life
Fela’s life and family history paralleled the anticolonial, national
independence and Pan-African struggles in Africa and within the Diaspora. His
mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, was a feminist who fought for the liberation of
Nigeria from British imperialism.
Ransome-Kuti was reputed to have been the first woman to drive an automobile in
Nigeria. She is also known, as noted in the musical, for traveling to China to
meet with Chairman Mao during the height of the revolutionary period in that
Asian nation.
Fela’s father was a protestant minister, the Rev. Israel Oludotun
Ransome-Kuti. He was an educator and the first president of the Nigerian Union
of Teachers. Going back even further, one of Fela’s ancestors was sent to
South America during slavery, but later freed himself and returned to Nigeria
triumphantly.
Even though Nigeria gained independence from Britain in 1960, the country
remained a neocolonial state that moved closer to the U.S. during the 1960s. A
secessionist war took place between 1967 and 1970, when the eastern region
attempted to break away from the federal republic that was then under military
control. The revolt was defeated.
It was the role of the military in Nigeria that drew Fela’s ire. His
outspoken criticism of political repression and corruption under military rule
resulted in several attempts to prosecute him on trumped-up charges.
After Fela released his world-famous album “Zombie” in 1977, where
the army was ridiculed in an extended rhythmic title track that lasted over 25
minutes, the efforts of the military government to silence him accelerated. In
1978 a thousand soldiers surrounded his home in Lagos and later invaded the
residence, attacking and assaulting women, destroying and stealing property.
The home was burned down by the soldiers.
Funmilayo was living there at the time. She too was assaulted and later thrown
out of an upstairs window, resulting in her death. Fela later issued an album
about the attacks called “Coffin for a Head of State.”
In 1984 when Fela was set to leave Nigeria on a world concert tour, he was
arrested on the airplane and charged with illegal currency possession. He was
convicted and spent more than a year in prison.
An international campaign ensued, demanding his release. Eventually he was
freed from prison in 1986 and traveled to the U.S. for a series of
concerts.
In Detroit in 1986, Fela and Egypt 80 played a three-hour concert at the newly
refurbished downtown Fox theater which this writer attended. The concert host
Nkenge Zola, a broadcast journalist working at the time at the local affiliate
of National Public Radio, who promoted African music, reminded the thousands in
attendance that many people had come by the studio in 1985 to sign petitions
demanding Fela’s release. Fela traveled to the U.S. two other times
— in 1990 and 1991. His last concert in Detroit was in August 1991.
As political repression intensified in Nigeria, Fela was charged with murder by
the military government. The charges were baseless, but they prevented him from
traveling outside Nigeria to earn a living and to seek medical treatment for
his deteriorating health.
Fela died on Aug. 3, 1997, two months shy of his 59th birthday. His funeral was
attended by an estimated 1 million people in Lagos.
This production in New York has made a tremendous contribution to contemporary
African culture and its relationship to the broader struggle against repression
and neocolonialism. This writer hopes the production will go on tour around the
U.S. and eventually to the African continent, where it would undoubtedly be
well received. FELA! is currently playing in London.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
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