Fela

Growing up, coming back from church to and hearing the music of Fela from the stereo was a regularly thing. I didn’t get to really know or understand him nor his music till 2008, on a certain day I was bored and I stumbled on a CD of a Fela Documentary so I decided to watch it. During documentary, there was a scene where Fela was being interviewed, he sat there in his pant and at a point he pulled down the pant to show his bare buttocks to the camera and he said “Look at my yansh, they beat me up, they want to kill me but I can’t die, I’m Anikulapo-Kuti! Do you know what that means? He that has death in his pouch. They can’t kill me, I can’t die!”. In that moment I said to myself, this man must really be on to something. How many men in history have been so self-assured in their immortality? How many men while alive could claim immortality? And he was right, years after his death (19 years at the time this was written) Fela is still alive, he is still being celebrated. Fela is alive in afro-beat, Fela is alive in our day-to-day struggles, Fela is alive in our socio-political sphere, Fela is alive in our challenges as a nation, Fela is alive in solutions needed to overcome our challenges as a nation.

Being Fela

I no go gree, make my brother hungry, make I no talk…… — Fela.

Being Fela means standing up for your fellow man, helping you friends and strangers alike, resisting oppression, speaking and campaigning against societal ills. For daring to be Fela, Fela was constantly being hounded by various military governments in Nigeria, he was sent to prison, framed up for crimes, his house burnt, his mother beaten and injured which lead to her death. But still Fela wasn’t cowed, he still had his voice, he still had his medium (music) through which he preached against injustice, corruption, oppression, greed, inequality, poverty and other such vices brought on by the military, religion and colonialism.

Sides

Fela also had his frailty like every human. Unlike most though, he acknowledged and accepted his. He was not one to be a hypocrite. There were many sides to Fela as reflected in his music. His love for Lagos, his disdain for skin bleaching, the value of water, why blacks should embrace their originality in dressing and conduct, his thoughts on the United Nation organization, human rights and “Democrazy”, power show by local authorities, executive stealing, police and military harassment of citizens, aloofness of the bourgeoisie from reality, African greatness and many more.

Black President

Fela was a prophet. In the music of Fela, there we can understand our challenges as a nation, we can identify our common enemy, in his music we can seek for ways to heal our nation.

Nigeria has just celebrated her 56th independence anniversary, a lot can be said about those 56 years. But moving forward, I would like for us to listen to “Viva Nigeria by Fela”. To go forward we still have to look backward, learn from our past and heal. Then can be begin the true process of building a great nation.

We are not third world; we have been always first — Fela.