Fela Kuti
Fela Anikulapo Kuti (1938 to 1997) was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist, bandleader, composer and political activist, best known as the creator of Afrobeat, a blend of Yoruba and Afro-Cuban traditions with funk and jazz, built on hypnotic grooves that could stretch a single song past twenty minutes. His bands Africa 70 and Egypt 80, with the drummer Tony Allen, were formidable machines.
The Complete Works Of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti
Every Fela Kuti album in one box: 51 records on 29 CDs, from Koola Lobitos highlife to Underground System, with rarities, two unreleased tracks, the A Slice Of Fela DVD and a 52-page booklet by Chris May.
Fela Ransome Kuti and his Koola Lobitos
Before Afrobeat, there was Highlife-Jazz and Afro-Soul. Highlife music, originally from Ghana and widely popular across West Africa, dominated the music scene in Lagos when Fela Kuti returned to the newly independent Nigeria in 1963. Fela had been st…
Sorrow Tears And Blood (Book)
Sorrow Tears and Blood offers a glimpse into the complicated social, cultural, and political phenomenon that is Nigeria.
Ikoyi Blindness
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 ad…
Original Suffer Head
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…
O.D.O.O. (Overtake Don Overtake Overtake)
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 al…
Noise For Vendor Mouth
"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 citiz…
Excuse O
The deepest song here is the second track, ""Mr Grammarticalogylisationalism Is The Boss,” which ridicules the notion that speaking ""proper"" English demonstrates superior intelligence, and bemoans the fact that doing so is, unfortunately, a require…
Kalakuta Show
"The Kalakuta Show album release was Fela’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 po…
Why Black Man Dey Suffer.......
Also featuring Ginger Baker, the title track is among Fela’s first overtly political lyrics. His political perspective had evolved during the 1969 / 1970 tour of the US, largely through his friendship with the black-rights activist Sandra Izsadore, w…
Roforofo Fight
*2023 stock* "A brilliant album from Fela Kuti – and one that shows him really coming into his own, with that tremendous new sound that would go onto influence decades of musicians! The title track – Roforofo Fight – is a side-long jam that instantly…
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Shakara
*50th Anniversary reissue* These percolating, horn-heavy grooves simmer while Fela Kuti lays down his trademark rants, often in deliberately skewered pidgin English....totally unstoppable in its mix of music and message. His voice, interlocking guita…
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Gentleman
50th Anniversary Reissue on Igbo Smoke Vinyl. 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 gen…
Open & Close
*2023 stock* "Perhaps the distinguishing factors of records like Open & Close and some of Fela Kuti's other '70s releases are that as much as he liked to ride a groove, he also liked to disrupt it, twist it and turn it, reshape it, only to bring it b…
Zombie
"Zombie: Fela in his life time was never ‘a good bed-fellow’ of the military institution. As a political activist, he believed the army should operate under the mandate of a civil government. If national interest compels the armed forces to intervene…
Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense
*2023 stock* "Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense: Fela explains the role of the teacher in any society with the concept that: all the things we consider as problems, and all the good things we accept from life as good, begin with what we are taught. The…
Yellow Fever
*2023 stock* Fela Kuti deplores the fashion among African women for skin-whitening creams, an example of the post-colonial inferiority complex he believed was holding back the country's development. The song addresses the fashion much as 1973’s “Gent…
J.J.D (Johnny Just Drop!!) - Live!! At Kalakuta Republik
*2023 stock* "Johnny Just Drop is talking about Africans who travel abroad only to return home with new values and mannerisms. Since the advent of colonialism in Africa, the education system left Black people with an inferior perception of their cult…
Live!
* 50th-anniversary reissue, 2LP on red vinyl * Originally recorded in 1971 at Abbey Road studios in just a few hours, 'Live!' is a collaboration between good friends former Cream drummer Ginger Baker and Nigerian multi-instrumentalist and Afrobeat pi…
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Confusion
* 2022 Small Repress * Over a decade a half after his death, vindication has come to Fela Kuti, Africa’s musical genius. AfroBeat, his gift to the world, is now an international staple on his own uncompromising terms, social content intact. Throughou…
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Fela's London Scene
* 50th anniversary edition of 1971's London Scene, pressed on limited edition white, red, blue splatter vinyl. Complete with a collector's gold OBI strip *Fela Kuti (1938-1997) was a Nigerian musician, producer, arranger, political radical and outlaw…
V.I.P. (Vagabonds In Power) Vol. 1 Live In Berlin
* 2021 Repress * Knitting Factory Records reissue Fela Kuti’s ‘Army Arrangement’ on vinyl, previously only available as part of the Box Set series. ‘Army Arrangement’ is about Nigeria’s attempt at ‘democracy’ in 1979 after more than a decade of milit…
Army Arrangement
Knitting Factory Records reissue Fela Kuti’s ‘Army Arrangement’ on vinyl, previously only available as part of the Box Set series. ‘Army Arrangement’ is about Nigeria’s attempt at ‘democracy’ in 1979 after more than a decade of military rule.Bill Las…
Fela's First - The Complete Melodisc Session
** In process of Stocking ** The tape of the very first Fela Ransome Kuti recording session has languished in a series of dusty cupboards and damp basements for 60 years. It’s a miracle that it has survived in such fine condition. The original Melodi…
Afrodisiac
Super album, mixing some of the improvisational verve of jazz into Fela Kuti's Afro-funk stew. These four workouts, all sung in Nigerian, are propulsive mixtures of funk and African music, avoiding the homogeneity of much funk and African records of …
Zombie Fela Kuti And Afrika 70
Includes liner notes by Jacqueline Grandchamp-Thiam, Rikki Stein and Mabinuori Kayode Idowu. Digitally remastered by Pompon (Translab Paris, Paris, France). With the inclusion of Nigerian master musician Fela Anikulapo Kuti's incendiary 1977 single, …
V.I.P. / Authority Stealing
Fela Anikulapo Kuti's 1978 Berlin Jazz Festival appearance, here as V.I.P. (Vagabonds in Power), is one of Africa 70's finest performances. V.I.P. castigates Nigerian authority more sizably than any other Fela album for one reason: he verbally beat d…
Upside Down/Music Of Many Colours
This two-for-one CD reissue brings together a couple of the more unusual offerings in Fela Kuti's discography. Upside Down, released in 1976, is the usual two-song, half-hour deal, the songs beginning with several minutes of instrumental solo trades …
Live In Amsterdam
Personnel includes: Fela Kuti (vocals, soprano saxophone, electric piano, organ); Laspalmer Ojeah (guitar); Femi Kuti (alto saxophone); Oyinade Adeniran (tenor saxiphone); Tajudeen Amimashaun, Achampong (baritone saxophone); Moses Sobo Wale, Akameah …
Underground System
At 28 minutes in length, the title track boogies from fat funk break to fat funk break as though James Brown possessed the structural ambition of Duke Ellington. Recorded when Fela's 34-piece band was at its apex, this indispensable Fela disc has it …
Teacher, Don't Teach Me Nonsense
In Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense, Fela explains the role of the teacher in any society with the concept that all the things we consider to be problems and all that we consider to be good in life begin with what we are taught, whether it's by our mo…
Stalemate / Fear Not For Man
Originally released in 1977, this is a studio recording so it has a more polished sound than on the recent Best Best. BTW, none of these tracks are on Best Best... Stalemate and Fear not for Man are the stand outs, but the rest of album is good too. …
Shuffering And Shmiling / No Agreement
Nigerian musician Fela Anikulapo Kuti specialized in the percolating jam, peppered with idiosyncratic horn stabs and political chants, underpinned with sinuous, interweaving guitar and bass lines, and propelled by Tony Allen's Afrobeat percussion, bl…
Shakara / London Scene
These percolating, horn-heavy grooves simmer while Fela lays down his trademark rants, often in deliberately skewered pidgin English....totally unstoppable in its mix of music and message. His voice, interlocking guitars and percussionist Tony Allen …
Roforofo Fight/Fela Singles
This is essentially a CD reissue of Fela Kuti's 1972 album Roforofo Fight, with the addition of two previously unreleased tracks from the same era. It's true that Kuti's early-'70s records tend to blur together with their similar groupings of four le…
Original Suffer Head/I.T.T.
Nearly every one of MCA's twofer reissues of the best albums in Fela Kuti's discography is worthwhile, and this pairing of 1980's I.T.T. and 1982's ORIGINAL SUFFER HEAD is no exception. By the early '80s Fela had already honed his intensely polyrhyth…
Opposite People / Sorrow Tears And Blood
His mixture of raw energy and sophistication is as remarkable today as it was when he first put it all on wax.
Monkey Banana / Excuse 0
"Monkey Banana/Excuse O" is another gem in the Fela two-albums-on-one-CD reissue series. (By the way, the cover art posted on this page is that of "Upside Down" not "Monkey Banana.") It should be noted that unlike some of the other titles in this ser…
Koola Lobitos 63-68/69..
Recorded between 1964 & 1969. Includes liner notes by Mabinuori Kayode Idowu, Jacqueline Grandchamp-Thiam & Rikki Stein.Mojo (Publisher). Intriguing...KOOLA gathers 6 highlife tracks from 1964-68, ranging from the almost-Caribbean via trad jazz to th…