Thinking African in America
If Fela Kuti’s time in London at Trinity college was the experience that first opened his eyes, then his first trip to the United States was the alarm that jolted him completely out of his ideological slumber. While in London, Fela was able to see that the Europeans didn’t like or respect African culture which helped him to realize that the European way couldn’t be the way for Africa. This experience did help Fela to affirm his own African identity, which played a major role in breaking down Fela’s relationship with the colonial mentality. However, Fela still lacked the revolutionary frameworks needed for him to speak out and lyrically dismantle the systematic effects of the colonial system and mentality. In many ways he, as well as many other Africans at the time, we’re still trying to figure out if they were to continue to imitate and implement the systems of their colonial masters, even though colonialism had officially “ended”. Or were they to revert to the systems of traditional African society in which they had been told was an inherently inferior system for generations. In America, Fela was able to observe the struggles and triumphs of black Americans and find his own answer to this question.
In an Interview with the New York Times, Fela recalls his first time in America and states the following:
“It was incredible how my head was turned. Everything fell into place, man,” Fela says. “For the first time, I saw the essence of blackism [black nationalism]. It’s crazy; in the States, people think the black‐power movement drew inspiration from Africa. All these Americans come over here looking for awareness. They don’t realize they’re the ones who’ve got it over there. Why we were even ashamed to go around in national dress until we saw pictures of blacks wearing dashikis on 125th St.”(Stewart,99)
Fela and his band landed at JFK airport in New York in June of 1969, and the following 10 months that he spent in the US were some the most turbulent times of he and his band members’ lives. The company that sponsored the tour for Fela and his band, African Tours Ltd., had abandoned them, leaving them forced to travel and schedule shows on their own(Stewart,103). The band traveled around the United States unaccompanied and with expired work visas. They had numerous run-ins with immigration authorities and eventually ended up stranded in Los Angeles, California. This dilemma ended up leading to some of the most important and enlightening experiences in Fela’s young life(Barrett,3).
1969 was a time where black people in America had a piqued revolutionary spirit. Just one year ago African Americans in major cities throughout the country had begun to riot and uproar after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King in 1968. This was the height of the black power movement in America, and the country was filled with black revolutionaries who wanted to affirm blackness in a country that had been suppressing it for generations(Labinjoh,125).
One revolutionary who played a major role in the enlightenment of Fela Kuti is the singer and former Black panther, Sandra Izsadore (formerly known as Sandra Smith). Sandra opened her home to Fela, While he was stranded in Los Angeles and they had a very close relationship(Vanderknyff,3). This was a time where black Americans were looking to Africa for answers to their own questions and Izsadore thought that as an African, Fela would help her gain a better understanding of her history and culture. She would talk to him about ideas such as black nationalism and pan-Africanism as if he had already been aware of those concepts. During their conversations, Fela would rarely speak. He would just listen to the things that Sandra was saying(Stewart,103).
She took Fela’s silence as a sign that he was already politically aware, but she would later find out that she was teaching him just as much if not more than she had hoped he would teach her. Sandra created a curriculum of black radical thinkers for Fela to read. She introduced him to the writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), Nikki Giovanni, The Last Poets, Jesse Jackson, Nina Simone, Eldridge Cleaver, Angela Davis, and, above all, Malcolm X(Stewart,103). It was through the revolutionary text of these authors and numerous conversations with Sandra that Fela was able to understand the structural and historical factors that led to economic, and political underdevelopment of the Black people. He was able to draw parallels between the effects of American racism that stemmed from generations of slavery and the colonial racism that he experienced in Nigeria(Vanderknyff,3). However, unlike people in Nigeria Fela, saw that black American were unabashedly confronting the systems of black oppression, instead of embracing it. This inspired Fela to want to make a difference in his own country.
Most importantly, America was not only the place where Fela developed his own brand of revolutionary vigor, but it was also the place where he was able to create his own distinct sound of music. With no work visa, Fela filled most of his days by sitting in front of the piano in Sandra Izsadore’s house and working on his craft. Sandra had gotten Fela and his band a consistent gig at a club on Sunset Boulevard. One day after countless hours of experimenting and tinkering his sound, he decided to premiere a song at the club that he considered to be the first African tune that he had ever written, an instrumental track that he titled “My Lady’s Frustration” in honor of Sandra(Labinjoh,126). In Fela’s own words the crowd’s response to the new song was dramatic.
This new song was the beginning of Afrobeat as we know it. When Fela had witnessed the crowd’s response to his new form of music, he knew he had created something special and had finally started to create the music he had always wanted to since he started studying music in 1958.
Fela believed that the song was successful because he was finally thinking African. He said himself that:
“I realized that you cannot think European and want to write or create something African. You have to think African in everything.”
The success of this song and the new ideologies that Fela developed in the United States sent Fela into a creative frenzy, and he continued to produce more African tunes. However his songs were not only changing in musical composition, but also in terms off how political they were. This political shift in Fela’s music was influenced a great deal by the black power movement in the United States.
He saw that the black revolutionaries in the United States were fighting for more than just basic rights, they were fighting to affirm their identity and blackness. They understood that black culture in America had been distorted and diluted as a result of slavery. They knew that American culture as it stood, was innately anti-black. Therefore they did not seek to integrate into the culture, they wanted to dismantle it and create culture that would actually value their culture and well-being.
As Fela conceptualized this movement and applied it to the situation of post colonial Africa.In many ways he observed that in Africa they were doing the opposite. Colonialism had obviously distorted and erased a great deal of African culture. Yet, individuals where still embracing the culture of the people responsible for the erasure of their own culture(Fanon,3).
He realized that Africa still had not been able to go through a true ideological revolution. Yes the late-50s and early-60s were marked with numerous African countries gaining independence, but overall the problems of Africa stayed the same or worsened. This was largely due to the African officials who continued to consolidate wealth, and disenfranchise the poor of their countries. They were able to exploit other Africans by utilizing the same systems that white colonialist implemented(Labinjoh,129). These systems created a colonial lifestyle that was filled with inconsistency and inequality for the poorest Africans(Sithole,2). However, these rich leaders would blame the poor Africans that were suffering, and not the systems that were clearly at the root of the problem(Sithole,3). Fela saw that these systems were innately anti-African and that the leaders unwillingness to change them would lead to the stagnation of African progress.
Just like the black revolutionaries in America he knew that he had to try to dismantle the system in order to make room for one that could actually be beneficial for the African people. Fela was ready to go home and challenge the colonial system and the African officials who where upholding it, because he thought it could lead to the progress of Africa, which he felt was quickly being left behind by the rest of the world. By experiencing the revolutionary black power era first hand he was able to learn how to challenge large and entrenched power structures(Labinjoh,125).
By 1970 when the band finally returned home, Fela had a new genre of music and a sense of political consciousness that he wanted to share with his home country. His time in America set him up ideologically as well as musically to lyrically and ideologically confront the systems of corruption and destitute in post-colonial Africa.
