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FEMI KOLEOSO - THE 'FELABRATION' MIX )320kbs-m4a/62mb/27mins)
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 21st October 2023
Femi gets your Saturdays moving with a mix celebrating the legend Fela Kuti.
Fela Kuti - Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense [Knitting Factory]
Fela Kuti - Shakara (Ossie's Bump Edit) [Kalakuta Sunrise]
Kalakuti - Know Yourself! Afro Heat [Knitting Factory]
Dele Sosimi - Sanctuary (Titeknots Remix Instrumental) [Wah Wah 45s]
Femi Kuti - Truth Don Die (Kerri Chandler's Lagos Dub) [Nuphonic]
Bugz In The Attic - Zombie (Part One) [Bitasweet]
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 23rd September 2016
Fela Kuti created a unique sound, Afrobeat, but he was far more than a music star. In Nigeria he spoke out for the oppressed on all social issues. He was a cultural revolutionary, and paid the ultimate price. Neneh Cherry conlcudes his story and highlights the relevance of his influence on the music scene of Nigeria and across the world.
First broadcast on Radio 2.
Fela Kuti - Coffin For Head of State [Barclay]
Fela Kuti - Lady [Barclay]
Fela Kuti - No Agreement [Universal Music Operations Ltd]
Fela Kuti - Sorrow Tears and Blood [Wrasse]
Fela Anikulapo Kuti & Egypt 80 - Beasts of No Nation [Wrasse]
Fela Kuti - Funky Horn [Stern's Africa]
Fela, Sandra And Company - Upside Down [n/a]
Fela Kuti - ITT Part 2 [n/a]
Fela Kuti & Afrika 70 - Water No Get Enemy [Barclay]
Fela Kuti - Shuffering & Shmiling [Universal/Barclay]
Fela Kuti - Viva Nigeria [Stern's Africa]
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 22nd September 2016
Fela Kuti created a unique sound, Afrobeat, but he was far more than a music star. In Nigeria he spoke out for the oppressed on all social issues. He was a cultural revolutionary, and paid the ultimate price.
Neneh Cherry tells his story and highlights the relevance of his influence on the music scene of Nigeria and across the world. Contributors include his sons and daughters - Femi Kuti, Seun Kuti, Yeni Kuti, Motunrayo Kuti; Rikki Stein, Fela's manager for over 15 years; Sandra Isidore; drummer Tony Allen; and slam poet Saul Williams
First broadcast on Radio 2 in November 2008.
Fela Kuti - Shuffering & Shmiling [Universal/Barclay]
Fela Kuti - Zombie [Barclay]
Dorothy Love Coates and The Original Gospel Harmonettes - Untitled Instrumental [Speciality]
Fela Kuti - Highlife Time [Warner Music UK Limited]
Fela Kuti - Obe! (Soup) [Stern's African Record Centre]
Fela Ransome Kuti & Nigeria 70 - My Lady Frustration [Stern's Africa]
Fela Kuti - Shakara [Wrasse]
Fela Kuti - Africa Centre Of The World [Wrasse]
Fela Kuti & Afrika 70 - Water No Get Enemy [Barclay]
Fela Kuti - Lady [Barclay]
Fela Kuti - Unknown Soldier [Barclay]
Fela Kuti - V.I.P [Univeral]
Fela Kuti - Zombie [Barclay]
Fela Kuti & Egypt 80 - Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense [Knitting Factory]
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 27th July 2016
Fela Kuti is Africa's most famous musician. Before his death in 1997 he recorded nearly 50 albums and invented his own genre of music: Afrobeat. In the 70s and 80s his legendary club in Lagos was famed for housing the best live band on Earth. As witnessed by James Brown, Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney.
But there was more to Fela Kuti than ground-breaking music. He was also a political revolutionary who spent his life strongly criticising successive military regimes in his native Nigeria. While his contemporaries would sing in more general terms of oppression, Fela singled out his targets, personally naming them in songs which became popular all over Africa. It wasn't long before he was a hero to many working class Nigerians.
But his taunts didn't go down so well with the authorities. Nor did his controversial lifestyle: he openly smoked marijuana, declared his home an independent state of Nigeria and married 27 women on the same day. The story goes he was the most arrested person in Nigerian history. He appeared in court hundreds of times, had spells in prison and permanently suffered from his injuries after regular beatings at the hands of the military and police. Fela believed they were also responsible for the death of his mother, who was thrown from an upstairs window when his home was stormed by 1000 soldiers.
In 2009 his incredible story was turned in to a successful Broadway musical and this April it performed in Lagos for the first time. Fela Kuti was coming home. But while the rest of the world is finally paying attention to this musical and political revolutionary why will you struggle to hear any of his music on Nigerian radio? Have they forgotten Fela? Or do the powers that be still find his music offensive? Radio 4 visited Lagos to find the answers.
Part of Radio 4 on Music, re-releasing the best of the Radio 4 Music Archive.
