Revolutionary Icon
“I came home with the intent to change the whole system. . . . I didn’t know they were going to give me such opposition because of my new Africanism. How could I have known? As soon as I got back home, I started to preach. I decided to change my music. And my music did start changing according to how I experienced the life and culture of my people”(Stewart, 104)
After returning to Nigeria in 1970 Fela and his music underwent another dramatic change. With his newfound political conscious, developed in the US, Fela began to see the trials and tribulations of Africa in a new way. In his lyrics, he was able to create songs that resonated with the masses of Africa, affirm African styled thinking, while still being able to undermine the remnants of the corrupt European system that was still being implemented by the rich and powerful of Africa(Sithole,2).
His first few years back in Nigeria were still an experimental phase for Fela and it still took some time for the masses of Nigeria to get used to this new form of music(Labinjoh,127). However, by the mid-1970s, Fela had finally begun to reach his creative peak and the youth and poor of Nigeria began to clamor for his music.
This period in the mid-1970s is referred to as Fela’s purple period, which was marked by prolific creation for Fela. During this time, Fela would produce at least three songs a week, which led to the production of 23 albums of new material in just 3 years. These songs and albums would act more like a news bulletin than a song(Barrett,4). Unlike the highlife that Fela made early in his career, which were focused on dancing and good times. His new songs would be about the contemporary issues in Nigeria, such as poverty, underdevelopment, and state sponsored violence. Additionally Fela made the conscious decision to sing his lyrics in pidgin English (A dialect spoken in most Anglophone African countries). This resonated with the masses of Africa because Fela was speaking the language of the street(Barrett,4). He chose not to sing in a tribal language because he wanted to emphasize pan-Africanism and he did not sing in English because that was not the language of the people.
At the beginning of this period, most of Fela’s songs acted as vignettes that portrayed the daily struggles of the masses in post-colonial Africa, but he highlighted how the elite in Africa were the ones who were causing the most strife for the masses.
In Fela’s 1975 song “Everything Scatter” he describes a scene where two distinctly different groups of people get into an argument on a bus in Lagos. The argument on the bus starts after a man sees Fela from outside his window and starts to call him and his followers’ ye-ye people and amugbo people. Which translates to mischievous weed smoking people. Another character on the bus, who is presumably a Fela supporter, objects to the man’s description of Fela and his followers and responds by saying, “Don’t call them that, them be my people.” From there the argument gets bigger and the local authorities are called and this is where the song not only becomes political but also a reflection of Fela’s life in Nigeria.
The last verse of the song is sung from the perspective of a police officer and states the following:
bring me the Fela people
Make am lock am, charge am forgot
Before I shut (their) big mouth for am
Then I hand am to mosquito
That is how this country be, that is how this country be.
That is why everything dey scatter scatter, that is why everything dey scatter scatter
This verse highlights the intimidation and suppression that Fela and his followers faced in Nigeria as his songs became more political. The police officer in the song doesn’t even know what the charges will be, he just wants to arrest the Fela people because he just likes the other man on the bus just see him as a trouble maker. The officer had no intentions of understanding why the argument started or who was involved. No, the officer just wanted the Fela people, because they were agitators to the status quo. When the police officer says “I hand am to Mosquito” he is referencing Nigerian prisons, which were often located near mosquito-infested waters. This further exemplified how these Africans with positions of power used their authority to suppress the voices of people who wanted change in Africa.
This was a reflection of how the Nigerian government actually treated Fela. Throughout his career, Fela Kuti was arrested 200 times by the Nigerian government and endured numerous beatings for his highly political lyrics. Despite this, his lyrics never faltered in political vigor. The arrest and beatings became fuel for his music. He would continue to call out the police and the military as they tried to suppress his voice, and they would respond with arrests and violence(Barrett,6).
This back and forth, continued until it reached an apex when Fela released one of his most popular and politically oppositional songs, “Zombie”. This song was a scathing critique of the Nigerian government and military. He described the soldiers as mindless zombies who were basically tools of violence for the government to use to suppress people. The lyrics of the song are the following:
Zombie no go go, unless you tell am to go (Zombie)
Zombie no go stop, unless you tell am to stop (Zombie)
Zombie no go turn, unless you tell am to turn (Zombie)
Zombie no go think, unless you tell am to think (Zombie)Tell am to go straight
A joro, jara, joro
No break, no job, no sense
A joro, jara, joro
Tell am to go kill
A joro, jara, joro
No break, no job, no sense
A joro, jara, joro
Tell am to go quench
A joro, jara, joro
No break, no job, no sense
A joro, jara, joroGo and kill! (Joro, jaro, joro)
Go and die! (Joro, jaro, joro)
Go and quench! (Joro, jaro, joro)
Put am for reverse! (Joro, jaro, joro)
The Nigerian government were completely infuriated by this song and decided to take actions of their own. On February 18th, 1977 the Nigerian government showed up to Fela’s communal compound, known as the Kalakuta Republic, with over 1,000 soldiers(Sithole,8). According to eye witness accounts, these soldiers not only beat and arrested Fela, but they also burned buildings, beat up residents of the republic, and even raped women. However, the most egregious crime they had committed, was throwing Fela’s 78-year-old mother from a first-floor balcony resulting in her death.
The events on that day laid a huge emotional toll on Fela, but he continued to make music that called out the government. He made multiple songs in the years following the raid that directly addressed the Nigerian government and military holding them accountable for the things that had done(Barrett,7).
Fela came to Nigeria with new eyes. He saw that the military and governmental apparatuses in Nigeria were upholding colonial and European values, and he wanted to dismantle them. He had his political awakening and could not be silenced because he wanted to make his nation and continent great through African means. The following words of Frantz Fanon articulate the journey that Fela made from a colonial boy to an Ikoyi man, to a revolutionary icon.
“What then did you expect when you unbound the gag that had muted those black mouths? That they would chant your praises? Did you think that when those heads that our fathers had forcibly bowed down to the ground were raised again, you would find adoration in their eyes?” I do not know; but I say that he who looks into my eyes for anything, but a perpetual question will have to lose his sight; neither recognition nor hate.”
Fela had been gaged by the colonial mentality and once he was able to free himself of it, no threats of violence or imprisonment stopped him from attempting to dismantle it.
