'The Best of the Black President' is the 13 track guide to Fela Kuti’s massive and manifold creative career. Fela was a musician, arranger, producer, political radical, outlaw and the originator of Afrobeat. This is the first time the complete compilation is available on vinyl. It is a 4 LP set, with updated cover art in a hardbound book jacket and printed inner sleeves. The individual LPs are pressed on red (sides A/B), green (sides C/D), blue (sides E/F) and yellow (sides G/H) vinyl. This edition features a Ludo game board as the back cover and comes with a perforated set of game pieces, dice, and instructions on how to play. Limited edition of 3000 for the world.

TRACK LISTING

1. Lady
2. Shakara (Oloje)
3. Gentleman
4. Water No Get Enemy
5. Zombie
6. Sorrow Tears And Blood
7. No Agreement
8. Roforofo Fight
9. Shuffering And Shmiling
10. Coffin For Head Of State
11. ITT
12. Army Arrangement
13. O.D.O.O.

'Alagbon Close' was the first of Fela’s albums to have a sleeve designed by Ghariokwu Lemi, whose artwork fast became an integral part of Fela's catalogue and Afrobeat's message. The disc was named after the headquarters of the Nigerian Criminal Investigation Department in Lagos. The title track concerns two police raids on Fela’s house, in April and May 1974. On the first occasion, they came looking for weed but could not find any. On the second, they attempted to plant a joint on Fela, but he grabbed it and swallowed it. He was detained at Alagbon Close for three days, while the police waited for the evidence to drop into his slop bucket. Fela was locked in a communal cell the prisoners jokingly called Kalakuta Republic (“kalakuta” is Swahili for “rascal”). His cellmates engineered a 'feces switch' and Fela was pronounced innocent. On his release he renamed his house Kalakuta Republic. “Alagbon Close” calls out the Nigerian police’s violence and arrogance and apparent immunity from prosecution. “Nothing special about uniform,” sings Fela. “Uniform na cloth na tailor dey sew am like my dress,” replies the chorus (meaning: just because you are wearing a uniform does not make you above the law). 

TRACK LISTING

1. Alagbon Close
2. I No Get Eye For Back

This edition of Original Sufferhead is a major event. With the release of box set #5, and now on this reissue, the title track of this magnificent album is presented in its full-length, 25 minutes 24 seconds glory. While preparing the master disc for the box set, our engineer Jedi, Colin Young, discovered four minutes of “lost” material on the B-side of the original pressing, including a superb keyboard solo by Fela. This had been omitted from subsequent reissues. The restored version used here starts and finishes with Fela’s keyboard work, a typically venturesome blend of futurism and visceralism. Original Sufferhead was the first album Fela released under Egypt 80’s name (he had disbanded Afrika 70 in 1979).

On the title track, arguing from the personal to the political, Fela describes the inhuman treatment and poor living conditions experienced by working class Nigerians, the people he called sufferheads. In “Power Show,” Fela sings about the two-tier system dividing Nigerian society, in which the rich get treated one way and the poor another.

TRACK LISTING

1. Original Sufferhead
2. Power Show

Fela used the cover of Ikoyi Blindness to announce his change of middle name from Ransome, which he now considered a slave name, to Anikulapo, which means “he who carries death in his pouch.” The front cover shows Ransome crossed out and Anikulapo added above it. Fela also used the album cover to announce the Africanisation of Africa 70’s name, changing it to Afrika 70. In the title track, Fela draws attention to the economic chasm separating the haves and have-nots of Nigerian society, contrasting the get-rich-at-all-costs mindset of the residents of the prosperous Lagos suburb Ikoyi with the more community-minded attitude of the poor inhabitants of the Mushin, Maroko, Ajegunle and Somolu neighborhoods. Ikoyi residents are blind to the sufferings of less fortunate people, says Fela.

Fela returns to the topic on the second track, “Gba Mi Leti Ki N’Dolowo (Slap Me Make I Get Money).” In Lagos in 1975 and 1976, there had been an upsurge in police and military personnel assaults on people in the street; motorists were commonly pulled out of their vehicles and given a whipping for minor traffic offenses. Scandalously, the police and soldiers were being allowed to get away with corruption in broad daylight. In the lyric, Fela demands that the judiciary administer the law equally, without fear or favor.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Ikoyi Blindness
B1. Gba Mi Leti Ki N'Dolowo (Slap Me Make I Get Money) 

Overtake Don Overtake Overtake was the penultimate album of newly recorded studio material released by Fela before he passed in 1997. Like its immediate predecessor, Beasts Of No Nation (also 1989), and its followup, Underground System (1992), the album finds Fela continuing to campaign for human rights and social change despite the relentless beatings, jailings and general harassment he had received from successive military regimes since the start of the 1970s.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Overtake Don Overtake Overtake (Part I)
B1. Overtake Don Overtake Overtake (Part II)

‘Excuse O’ is about natural human reactions to situations we confront in our daily endeavours. If you walk into a bar, ask and pay for a drink and you happen to recognize a friend in the bar, you take time off your table to chat with this friend. While you are at it, another man walks over to your table and drinks your glass of beer, of course you turn round and find him drinking your beer, your reaction will be: ‘Excuse O!’ Same for the person who goes to withdraw five Naira (equivalent of US $5 at that time) from his bank, takes public transport, in the bus the person finds another man trying to pick his pocket, the obvious reaction is: ‘Excuse O!’ For the man who dates a woman for the first time, the situation is even more serious. Particularly since, on their date, he takes the woman to a swimming pool after which they have lunch, from lunch to cinema, from cinema to dinner. After dinner, the man again invites her to have a dance at the Shrine (Fela’s Club). Sitting at a table, after ordering drinks, another man comes to excuse his partner for a dance, he does not object to the first, the second he consents to grudgingly. A third dance? That is enough, Mr! ‘Excuse O!’ will be the reaction from the man.

‘Mr Grammarticalogylisationalism Is The Boss’ is another of Fela’s songs critical of the education system in Africa - which he called a poor imitation of the Western education system. The man who speaks better English gets paid more. Fela sings: “…the better oyinbo you talk! The more bread you get!” The brainwash starts from the ‘Big’ English words used in the newspapers…the oyinbo (English) wey dey inside!, na riddle for labourer man! Inside the paper! Jargonism dey! (meaning there is a lot of jargon). Irrelevant issue that has no bearing towards alleviating the sufferings of the poor man on the street. Then the leaders blame the poor man’s problems on ‘ignorance’ and ‘delinquency’. Fela asks: “…who be delinquent? Na them delinquent! Who be delinquent? The oyinbo talker delinquent…!” Meaning who is delinquent? The Mr English Speaker is the one who is delinquent, referring to the leadership ruling most African countries.

TRACK LISTING

Excuse-O
Mr Grammarticalogylisationalism Is The Boss

The ‘Kalakuta Show’ album was Fela Kuti’s undaunted manner of extracting revenge on the military regime that attacked and brutalized him in 1974. The second of such attacks in a space of eight months, ‘Kalakuta Show’ was an attempt by the Nigerian police to influence the cause of justice. After the first police raid on Kalakuta in April 1974, Fela was charged to court for ‘possession of dangerous drugs’, and abduction of ‘minors’. However, the evidence presented by the prosecution was easily explained by the defence, who claimed that the drugs found in the premises belonged to Junction Clinic, a government licensed clinic situated inside Kalakuta Republic and run by Fela’s younger brother, Dr. Beko Ransome Kuti. On the ‘abduction of minors’ charge, all the young girls arrested in Fela’s house denied they were underage, or abducted, and they claimed in court they went to Fela’s house of their own accord. With no substantial evidence to convict Fela in this highly publicized trial, the police chose to raid Fela’s residence a second time, one week before judgment on the case, hoping to find evidence this time around. The result is the narrative of the gruelling and brutal manner the police treated their victims. Fela appearing in court with scalp wounds and a broken arm drew sympathy from the judge. A crowd of more than fifty thousand Lagos youths carried Fela from the court house in the Apapa area of Lagos to Kalakuta Republic - a distance of about six kilometres. During this jubilation, traffic was at a stand-still for several hours in the central part of Lagos mainland. ‘Don’t Make Garan Garan’ - ‘Ganran Ganran’ in Yoruba language means an egoist, full of himself, a self-centred person. The rich and highly placed Nigerians who frequently try to lord it over the poor are being asked to know their limits.

TRACK LISTING

Kalakuta Show
Don't Make Garan Garan

The Nigerian establishment labelled Kalakuta Republic inhabitants as ‘hooligans’, ‘hemp smokers’, etc. ‘Noise For Vendor Mouth’ is Fela’s indifference to that name-calling, because, for him, people in Kalakuta are really a bunch of hard-working citizens, trying to survive in a society riddled with corruption and mismanagement. He adds that the real hooligans are those in authority who resort to political gangsterism, and sometimes military coups, in order to resolve constitutional issues. He considers their criticisms as nothing but the noise made by street vendors to sell their wares.

Fela had been accused by critics of not being concerned about the issue of feminism and the unequal status of the sexes, thus keeping in line with several traditions which they claim he arbitrarily upholds. Several issues, from the African point of view, are counterpoised to the modern Western look. Fela had been criticized for openly endorsing polygamy. How could a man who campaigns against the unequal status of sexes and racism endorse a male domination? Fela’s justification for polygamy, apart from the traditional repopulation from slavery of Africa’s society, is the polygamous nature of man. In Christian societies, where polygamy is not tolerated, men marry officially with one woman but keep mistresses. African men are more honest in their approach - keeping all the women in the know and under one roof in the spirit of family. Songs like ‘Mattress’ may not help change

TRACK LISTING

Noise For Vendor Mouth
Mattress

‘Why Black Man Dey Suffer’, recorded in 1971, was originally deemed too controversial for release by EMI, his label at the time. Having recently been schooled in the American black power movement and having taken on a new Pan-African worldview, this album served as one of Fela’s first musical soapboxes on which he challenged the colonial injustices and corruption of the ruling elites of his time. The title track, also featuring Ginger Baker, is a history lesson on the oppression of the African man. It details the litany of abuses the black man has suffered - from being taken as slaves, to having an alien people impose a new culture upon them, taking their land, fighting them, and setting them against one another. ‘Ikoyi Mentality’ firmly expresses Fela’s identification with the downtrodden masses and his rejection of the ways of the ruling class inhabitants of the Ikoyi neighbourhood in Lagos.

TRACK LISTING

Why Black Man Dey Suffer
Ikoyi Mentality Vs Mushin Mentality

Knitting Factory Records and Partisan Records are proud to release the sixth installment of the much anticipated vinyl reissue box sets from the Fela Kuti catalog.

Vinyl box #6 was curated by actor, producer, DJ, rapper and singer, Idris Elba, aka DJ Big Driis. This edition, out on December 1, features Open & Close, Music of Many Colors, Stalemate, I Go Shout Plenty!!!, Live In Amsterdam, and Opposite People. The artwork for each album has been meticulously recreated from the original vinyl pressings, alongside vintage vinyl label artwork. The box set is a limited edition of 5,000 worldwide. It includes a 24 page booklet featuring lyrics, commentaries by Afrobeat historian Chris May, and never before seen photos; as well as a 16” x 24” poster designed by Lemi Ghariokwu, the creative force behind many of Fela’s album covers. Previous box set curators include Chris Martin, Erykah Badu, Ginger Baker, Brian Eno, and Questlove.

TRACK LISTING

Tracklist:
Open & Close
A1) Open & Close
B1) Swegbe & Pako
B2) Gbagada Gbagada Gbogodo Gbogodo

Music Of Many Colors (Feat. Roy Ayers)
A1) 2000 Blacks Got To Be Free
B1) Africa Centre Of The World

Stalemate
A1) Stalemate
B1) Don't Worry About My Mouth O (African Message)

I Go Shout Plenty!!!
A1) I Go Shout Plenty!!!
B1) Why Black Men Dey Suffer?

Live In Amsterdam
A1) M.O.P. (Movement Of The People) Political Statement Number 1 (Part 1)
B1) M.O.P. (Movement Of The People) Political Statement Number 1 (Part 2)
C1) Custom Check Point
C2) You Gimme Shit I Give You Shit (Part 1)
D1) You Gimme Shit I Give You Shit (Part 2)

Opposite People
A1) O.P. (Opposite People)
B1) Equalisation Of Trouser And Pant

Fela Kuti (1938-1997) was a Nigerian musician, producer, arranger, political radical, outlaw and the originator of Afrobeat. A titanic musical and sociopolitical voice, Fela’s legacy spans decades and genres, touching on jazz, pop, funk, hip-hop, rock and beyond.

1973’s Gentleman is the 7th in the series of celebratory Fela 50th Anniversary reissues. Like its predecessors in the series, this version is available on exclusive colored vinyl (Igbo Smoke) and the LP is wrapped in a gold foil obi strip with a brief essay on the album and Fela's global impact on music. Like Fela's other early 70's releases, he used each side of his LPs to create a deep groove that pulls the listener in and follows with metaphoric lyrics that call out and critique the corrupt hangover of colonialism.

Gentleman is the last of Fela's early 1970s albums recorded with the Africa 70. The title track can be interpreted literally or as a metaphor concerning a wider issue. Fela deftly addresses the colonialism-induced, inferiority complex which led many in Africa's new governing elites to reject African style, concepts of beauty, and modes of behavior in favor of European imports. Gentleman's other tracks, ""Fefe Naa Efe"" and ""Igbe,” have more direct, less metaphorical lyrics. On ""Fefe Naa Efe,” an Ashanti motto from Ghana, Fela tells a woman dumped by her boyfriend that she must get over the heartache and move on. On ""Igbe”, Fela declares that anyone who betrays a friend is shit, and that anybody who lacks self-respect is shit - something you want to expel from your body as soon as possible. He sings the word ""shit"" in several Nigerian languages, so there is no misunderstanding.



Gentleman (50th Anniversary Edition) is out on 23rd June 2023 via Partisan Records.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
01. Gentleman

Side B
01. Igbe (Na Shit)
02. Fe Fe Ne Eye Fe

Fela Kuti (1938-1997) was a Nigerian musician, producer, arranger, political radical, outlaw and the originator of Afrobeat. A titanic musical and sociopolitical voice, Fela’s legacy spans decades and genres, touching on jazz, pop, funk, hip-hop, rock and beyond.

“Shakara” is the 6th in the series of celebratory Fela 50th Anniversary reissues. Like its predecessors in the series, this version will be on colour vinyl and the LP will be wrapped in a gold foil obi strip with a brief essay on the album and Fela's global impact on music. Like Fela's other early 70's releases, he used each side of his LPs to create a deep groove that pulls the listener in and follows with metaphoric lyrics that call out and critique the corrupt hangover of colonialism.

The album is the sound of Afrobeat's maturation as a global music. Fela's Pidgin English lyrics extend his music's audience beyond Yoruba speakers and make his words understandable across the Anglophone world. In "Lady," Fela highlights the adoption of European social habits to the detriment of African culture. "Shakara" is a mainly instrumental track, with a brief lyric, sung in Yoruba, warning against boasters and braggarts. The song pacing is festive and typically up tempo, with boisterous horn arrangements, with strong solos from Fela on keyboards and the fearsome Igo Chico on tenor saxophone.

TRACK LISTING

LP SIDE A:
1. Lady
LP SIDE B:
1. Shakara

7" SIDE A:
1. Lady (Ezra Collective Remix)
7" SIDE B:
1. Shakara (Ezra Collective Remix)

Fela Kuti (1938-1997) was a Nigerian musician, producer, arranger, political radical, outlaw and the originator of Afrobeat. A titanic musical and sociopolitical voice, Fela’s legacy spans decades and genres, touching on jazz, pop, funk, hip-hop, rock and beyond.

Afrodisiac is the fifth in the series of celebratory Fela 50th Anniversary reissues. Like its predecessors in the series, this double LP edition is on color vinyl; LP 1 is green marble and LP 2 is on red marble. The album will be wrapped in a gold foil OBI strip with a brief essay on the album and Fela's global impact on music. The songs on Afrodisiac were tracks that Fela and the Nigeria 70 (Later Africa 70) re-recorded at Abbey Road Studios in 1972 after they had become hits in Nigeria. The best known song on the album, 'Jeun Ko Ku’, is listed by its Pidgin title ‘Chop and Quench’ on this album. It’s a satire about gluttony and Fela's first major hit across West Africa. ‘Chop and Quench’ means ""eat and die"" in Standard English.

Afrodisiac was first reissued on vinyl in 2014 as part of the Fela Box Set #3 curated by Brian Eno. Eno played Afrodisiac for David Byrne and it was a huge influence on Talking Heads when they recorded Remain In Light - there is a bonus track called ‘Fela's Riff’ that nods heavily to the influence of hearing Afrodisiac and Fela's music for the first time.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:
1. Alu Jon Jonki Jon
SIDE B:
1. Chop And Quench
SIDE C:
1. Eko Ile
SIDE D:
1. Je'nwi Temi (Don't Gag Me)

By 1972, when Music of Fela: Roforofo Fight was originally released (on two vinyl albums, Music of Fela Volume One and Volume Two), Fela was becoming one of the most avidly followed musicians in West Africa. His audience came from among the region's urban poor, the "sufferheads" living in the shanty towns around the major cities, along with growing numbers of students and political dissenters. Fela championed, and sang about the problems of, oppressed and exploited people and denounced the ruling elites lording it over them, with their seemingly endemic corruption and their ready use of violence to crush dissent. Because he generally sang in Broken English rather than Yoruba, and adopted an increasingly pan-Africanist outlook, his message resonated throughout Anglophone Africa.

The 50th-anniversary reissue of Roforofo Fight is pressed on double yellow & green vinyl. Side D features singles "Shenshema" and "Ariya" on vinyl for the first time. The two tracks were originally released as a 7" single in 1972 and later featured in the CD reissue of "Roforofo Fight / The Fela Singles".

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:
1. Roforofo Fight

SIDE B:
1. Go Slow

SIDE C:
1. Question Jam Answer
2. Trouble Sleep Yanga Wake Am

SIDE D:
1. Shenshema
2. Ariya

The 50th-anniversary reissue of Live! is pressed on double red vinyl and features an etching of the album artwork on Side D. Side C features Ginger Baker and Tony Allen’s blinding, extended, dual-drums solos from 1978’s Berlin Jazz Festival, re-mastered at Abbey Road Studios in 2021. This anniversary reissue marks the first vinyl pressing of these performances. Complete with a collector's gold OBI strip.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A:

1) Let's Start
2) Black Man's Cry


SIDE B

1) Ye Ye De Smell
2) Egbe Mi O (Carry Me I Want To Die)


SIDE C

1) Ginger Baker And Tony Allen Drum Solo, Part I (Live At Berlin Jazz Festival, 1978)
2) Ginger Baker And Tony Allen Drum Solo, Part II (Live At Berlin Jazz Festival, 1978)


SIDE D:

1) Bespoke Etching Design

To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Fela Kuti’s classic ‘Open & Close’, Knitting Factory Records are pleased to announce the first vinyl pressing since the 1980s. "Open & Close" was originally released in 1971 and is a total groove-fest loaded to the gills with raucous horn blowing, ferocious percussion (once again, Tony Allen take a bow), and song lengths over 10 minutes.

This edition features a return to the original gatefold jacket.

TRACK LISTING

Open & Close
Suegbe & Pako
Gbagada Gbogodo

By the time of these recordings Fela Kuti was HIV positive, drug addicted and had been brutalised by continual imprisonments and beatings at the hands of the Nigerian authorities. Over a fifteen year period he had sung about injustice, persecution, the downtrodden and the poor. He championed everyman's right to a decent life, decent education and freedom from intolerance. He had his all too obvious faults but his music remains a testimony to a performer justifiably known as the 'King of Afro-beat'. The last album of newly recorded material to be released during Fela’s lifetime, 1992’s ‘Underground System’ is an outstanding swansong. While Fela’s recorded output slowed up as the 1980s progressed - largely as a result of ongoing arrests, beatings and jailings - his final years of recording produced some of his strongest work, notably ‘Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense’ (1986), ‘Beasts Of No Nation’ (1989), ‘Overtake Don Overtake Overtake’ (1990) and ‘Underground System’.

TRACK LISTING

Underground System
Pansa Pansa

"Army Arrangement" comes from 1985 and is co-produced by Bill Laswell (Material) with the likes of Bernie Worrell (P-Funk) and Sly Dunbar guesting, giving the tracks an extra electronic edge. The LP is a critique of Nigeria's attempt at democracy. Mired as the army-led government was in political corruption, it came as no surprise that this LP cemented Fela's reputation as an anti-government subversive and continued the spiral of arrests, beatings and imprisonments that marred his life.

TRACK LISTING

Army Arrangement (Part 1)
Army Arrangement (Part 2)

The album is among Fela’s most courageous responses to the Nigerian army’s destruction of Kalakuta on 18 February 1977. During the attack, Fela’s mother, aged 78, a veteran of Nigeria’s struggle for independence from British colonial rule and an early campaigner for Nigerian women’s rights, was thrown out of an upstairs window, fracturing a leg. Fela believed that the assault led to his mother’s death 14 months later

TRACK LISTING

Coffin For Head Of State (Part 1)
Coffin For Head Of State (Part 2)

Originally released in 1977, ‘Johnny Just Drop (J.J.D.)’ features Fela lampooning Nigeria’s ‘beentos’, people who had been to Europe or America to work or study and then returned (dropped) home with European social pretensions and an inferiority complex about African culture. The reissue features original album artwork designed by Lemi Ghariokwu, who created the cover art for around half of Fela’s albums.

TRACK LISTING

Johnny Just Drop (J.J.D.) (Part 1)
Johnny Just Drop (J.J.D.) (Part 2)

‘No Agreement’ is sometimes overlooked among Fela’s 1977 releases, eclipsed by albums such as ‘Johnny Just Drop (J.J.D.)’ and ‘Sorrow Tears and Blood’, yet it is among his best albums of the period. It includes an outstanding Afrika 70 instrumental, ‘Dog Eat Dog’. The track includes a solo by the American trumpeter Lester Bowie of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, who was then staying with Fela in Lagos.

TRACK LISTING

No Agreement
Dog Eat Dog (Instrumental)

‘V.I.P.’ (Vagabonds In Power) was recorded live at the Berlin Jazz Festival in Autumn 1978 and released the following year. It is a ferocious and lyrically exalted attack on the abuse of state power. The festival straddled the cusp of the break-up of Afrika 70 and the formation of Egypt 80 in Spring 1979 and ‘V.I.P.’ was the last album Fela made with the drummer Tony Allen, who had been with him since 1964 and acted as Afrika 70’s bandleader.

TRACK LISTING

V.I.P. (Part 1)
V.I.P. (Part 2)

‘Yellow Fever’ was originally released in 1976, during Fela’s extraordinarily prolific 1975-77 purple period, when he released 24 albums in Nigeria alone. The title track is one of Fela’s defining masterpieces. Sung in Broken English, the language he adopted in order to make his words understood beyond Yoruba speakers, the lyrics rail against the fashion for skin-whitening creams.

TRACK LISTING

Yellow Fever
Na Poi ‘75

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2019 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 13th ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON. IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 12.01AM SATURDAY APRIL 20th.

Knitting Factory Records is proud to reissue Music of Many Colours on limited edition rainbow starburst vinyl, exclusive to Record Store Day. This is the first pressing of the album since the late 80’s. Music of Many Colours is a joint album between Roy Ayers and Fela Kuti, recorded after a three week tour of Nigeria’s major cities in 1979, during which Roy Ayers performed as the opening act for Fela’s band. The two artists decided to record the album as a round-up to the tour. Roy Ayers describes the experience saying, “I met Fela Kuti in Nigeria in 1979, and we fell into a great relationship, good personal and music vibes, and we recorded that album together. Fela also came to USA in the eighties and we performed at NYC's Madison Square Garden. Amazingly energetic, Fela Kuti had a very original concept that was called Afro Beat – a genre with a very unique identity and exceptional music. One of Fela Kuti's most impressive qualities was that he was undeniably a brilliant show man, as a musician and as a huge dancer as well. His African concept was truly original… The tour was about two black men together coming together, one from Africa and other from USA, a very exciting collaboration." Knitting Factory Records is proud to reissue Music of Many Colours on limited edition rainbow starburst vinyl, exclusive to Record Store Day. This is the first pressing of the album since the late 80’s. Music of Many Colours is a joint album between Roy Ayers and Fela Kuti, recorded after a three week tour of Nigeria’s major cities in 1979, during which Roy Ayers performed as the opening act for Fela’s band. The two artists decided to record the album as a round-up to the tour. Roy Ayers describes the experience saying, “I met Fela Kuti in Nigeria in 1979, and we fell into a great relationship, good personal and music vibes, and we recorded that album together. Fela also came to USA in the eighties and we performed at NYC's Madison Square Garden. Amazingly energetic, Fela Kuti had a very original concept that was called Afro Beat – a genre with a very unique identity and exceptional music. One of Fela Kuti's most impressive qualities was that he was undeniably a brilliant show man, as a musician and as a huge dancer as well. His African concept was truly original… The tour was about two black men together coming together, one from Africa and other from USA, a very exciting collaboration." Knitting Factory Records is proud to reissue Music of Many Colours on limited edition rainbow starburst vinyl, exclusive to Record Store Day. This is the first pressing of the album since the late 80’s. Music of Many Colours is a joint album between Roy Ayers and Fela Kuti, recorded after a three week tour of Nigeria’s major cities in 1979, during which Roy Ayers performed as the opening act for Fela’s band. The two artists decided to record the album as a round-up to the tour. Roy Ayers describes the experience saying, “I met Fela Kuti in Nigeria in 1979, and we fell into a great relationship, good personal and music vibes, and we recorded that album together. Fela also came to USA in the eighties and we performed at NYC's Madison Square Garden. Amazingly energetic, Fela Kuti had a very original concept that was called Afro Beat – a genre with a very unique identity and exceptional music. One of Fela Kuti's most impressive qualities was that he was undeniably a brilliant show man, as a musician and as a huge dancer as well. His African concept was truly original… The tour was about two black men together coming together, one from Africa and other from USA, a very exciting collaboration."

The collection of songs on ‘Afrodisiac’ were songs Fela and the Nigeria 70 (Later Africa 70) re-recorded at Abbey Road in London in 1971. Originally recorded and released in Nigeria on 45rpm, they were Fela’s first successive hits in the Nigerian music charts. The best known song on 1973’s ‘Afrodisiac’ is ‘Jeun Ko Ku’, a satire about gluttony and Fela’s first major hit in West Africa. In Broken English the title means ‘chop and quench’, which, in turn, means ‘eat and die’ in Standard English.

TRACK LISTING

A. Afrodisiac
B. Jeun Ko Ku

On the title track Fela and the backup singers ridicule the mindset of men in uniform over an urgent, quick-march accompaniment from Afrika 70. The album was a scathing attack on Nigerian soldiers using the zombie metaphor to describe the methods of the Nigerian military. ‘Zombie’ was a smash hit with the people and infuriated the government, setting off a vicious attack against the Kalakuta Republic (a commune that Fela had established in Nigeria). Fela was badly beaten, sustaining a fractured skull and several broken bones. His mother, then aged 77, was thrown out of a window, fracturing a leg and suffering deep trauma. The army then set fire to the compound. The blaze gutted the premises, destroying six Afrika 70 vehicles, all Fela’s master tapes and band equipment and a four-track recording studio. 

This CD reissue combines two 1976 releases, Ikoyi Blindness and Kalakuta Show, on one disc. Ikoyi Blindness was a middle-of-the-pack release in a sea of mid-'70s Fela records that featured two songs and about a half-hour's worth of music. The rhythms were a little tighter and more highlife-influenced than they had been on albums from earlier in the decade. "Ikoyi Blindness" itself was pretty typical of Fela efforts from the period, both in its structure that built up to a call-and-response vocal and in its taut two-chord melodic base. "Gba Mi Leti Ki N'Dolowo (Slap Me Make I Get Money)" is a little more interesting due to its choppier rhythms, more vibrant percussion, stuttering low guitar riff, and extended haunting electric keyboard lines. By the time of 1976's Kalakuta Show, Fela's releases were starting to seem not so much like records as ongoing installments in one long jam documenting the state of mind of Nigeria's leading contemporary musician and ideological/political dissenter.

This CD really consists of two lengthy songs. The first half of the CD consists of a live performance from Berlin in 1979, 'VIP' (Vagabonds in Power). This concert was important in its own right, as Fela was finally able to perform after being banned (officially or unofficially) from performing in a number of African nations due to his inflammatory lyrics. 'Authority Stealing' was recorded a couple of years prior. This album was actually inflammatory enough to initiate another round of beatings to Fela from the hands of government thugs, this time nearly killing him.

Fela's London Scene was one of the first recordings made by Fela and his newly named Nigeria 70, with recordings at Abbey Road and gigs scheduled around the album by Cream's Ginger Baker (who is said to have some uncredited time on the album). It is some of the earliest notions of Afro-beat. Fela is shaking off the highlife forms that he had been entertaining and moving to a deeper, more simmering groove. It also marks the beginning of a bit of his social commentary. He exhorts his fellow Africans to purchase African goods in "Buy Africa" and puts out a call to the Pan-African counterculture in "J'EHIN J'EHIN" and "Egbe Mi O." What one notices in this section of the album is a stripped-down groove that simmers until Fela finally breaks it out into a fully grown work of funk. In the Shakara section (with some 50 bare-breasted women on the cover helping sell the album), one finds fun (and perhaps shame) pointed at the westernizing African woman in "Lady" (espousing feminism, she believes herself equal to men, and espousing westernism, she takes on a delicate/weak form as a lady). In the title track the fun is poked instead at braggarts who don't back up their bravado. The main focus of this album, though, is to provide a good, danceable groove. This is exactly what Fela does. Pick it up as a landmark and a dance album together, but more importantly as a fan of Fela.

It's hard to go wrong with Fela Kuti's work from the 1970s, and "LIVE!", which features the Afro-beat innovator backed by his powerhouse band Africa '70 and ex-Cream drummer Ginger Baker, is no exception. Like all of Fela's recordings from the era, "LIVE!" consists of just a few tracks, each of which approximates or exceeds the ten minute mark.

Yet the arrangements are so dynamic on these tracks, the criss-crossing polyrhythms so absorbing, and Fela's incantatory vocals so entrancing that the long running times never seem a factor. Every cut crackles from beginning to end with its mixture of funk, jazz, and traditional Nigerian music, underscoring once again Fela's revolutionary, indelible contribution to world music. Fans of Ginger Baker will want to take note that the drummer is not showcased except on a bonus track, which pairs the drummer with Fela percussionist Tony Allen for a smokin' sixteen-plus minute drum solo.

A new reissue that unearths a series of previously unreleased sides recorded between 1964 and 1968 with Fela's first band, Koola Lobitos. These songs are steeped in the style of highlife jazz that was popular in African clubs, a fiery hybrid of Latin jazz, rhythm and blues, even calypso. With most of the vocals sung in his native Nigerian, the music is bubbling over with punchy brass arrangements, simmering percussion, and bass grooves that mortar the sound. Highlights include an ode to Nigerian nightlife, "Highlife Time," and "Omuti Tide," with Fela's tongue-in-cheek phrasing of "When the Saints Go Marching In" during his trumpet solo. The '69 L.A. Sessions find Fela & Nigeria '70 fleshing out the sound that would bring him acclaim and popularity. Ensconced in the knowledge of the American black struggle of the time from a female companion in Los Angeles, his approach went from bright and snappy to contemplative and hypnotic without compromising the groove.

Though preceded by the more-than-promising Gentleman and Afrodisiac in 1973, 'Alagbon Close', with the benefit of hindsight, marks a quantum leap for Kuti, Allen and Afro-beat. Most of the elements which make the disc so compelling can be heard on earlier albums, but on 'Alagbon Close' Kuti and Tony Allen pull them all together to devastating effect, in the process creating the definitive Afrobeat paradigm.

Africa 70 plays with unprecedented fire: the four-piece horn section was never more majestic; the nagging riffs and ostinatos of the tenor and rhythm guitars never more insistent. Allen is a lithe-limbed colossus, his soon-to-be signature rhythms at times pushing the band forward with extraordinary percussive power, at others drawing it back like a coiled spring, only to unleash it again. Three conga drummers support him. Kuti's screaming multi-octave glissandos on the organ climax an incantatory solo, and the track's concluding drums and horns passage is Africa 70 at its most epic.

'Why Black Man Dey Suffer' is a more formative affair. It's one of a series of early 1970s' albums which made the transition between the highlife and jazz blend of Kuti and Allen's first band, Koola Lobitos, and the turbulent magnificence of mature Afrobeat. Trumpeter Tunde Williams, baritone saxophonist Lekan Animashaun and first conga player Henry Kofi, from later line-ups including that on Alagbon Close, are also in place.

Fela Kuti's 1975 "Confusion" shows him and Africa 70 at the heights of instrumental prowess and ambiguous jibes (the stabs are about to get a bit more direct and heated with 1977's "Zombie"). "Confusion" begins with an unusual free jazz interplay between Fela on organ and drummer Tony Allen that has the presence of 2001: A Space Odyssey in its omnipresent drama. Then the group falls into a lengthily mid-tempo Afro-funk that plays with a sureness that only comes from skilled musicians and a dictator-like leader; here is the formula that had made Fela a genius: Once he has the listener (or the crowd - as all of his songs were originally meant to entertain and educate his audiences at the Shrine) entranced in his complex (and at the same time, deceptively simple) arrangements of danceable grooves, he hits them with what he wants to say. "Confusion" is a comment on the general condition of urban Nigeria (Lagos, in particular). Fela uses traffic jams, no fewer than three dialects, and a multitude of currencies that make trading difficult to complete the allusion to the general post-colonial confusion of a Nigeria lacking in infrastructure and proper leadership. "Confusion" is a highly recommended 25-minute Afro-beat epic.

"Army Arrangement" comes from 1985 and is co-produced by Bill Laswell (Material) with the likes of Bernie Worrell (P-Funk) and Sly Dunbar guesting, giving the tracks an extra electronic edge. The LP is a critique of Nigeria's attempt at democracy. Mired as the army-led government was in political corruption, it came as no surprise that this LP cemented Fela's reputation as an anti-government subversive and continued the spiral of arrests, beatings and imprisonments that marred his life.