Download or read book Fela written by Michael Veal and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Musician, political critic, and hedonist, international superstar Fela Anikulapo-Kuti created a sensation throughout his career. In his own country of Nigeria he was simultaneously adulated and loathed, often by the same people at the same time. His outspoken political views and advocacy of marijuana smoking and sexual promiscuity offended many, even as his musical brilliance enthralled them. In his creation of afrobeat, he melded African traditions with African American and Afro-Caribbean influences to revolutionize world music. Although harassed, beaten, and jailed by Nigerian authorities, he continued his outspoken and derisive criticism of political corruption at home and economic exploitation from abroad. A volatile mixture of personal characteristics -- charisma, musical talent, maverick lifestyle, populist ideology, and persistence in the face of persecution -- made him a legend throughout Africa and the world. Celebrated during the 1970s as a musical innovator and spokesman for the continent's oppressed masses, he enjoyed worldwide celebrity during the 1980s and was recognized in the 1990s as a major pioneer and elder statesman of African music. By the time of his death in 1997 from AIDS-related complications, Fela had become something of a Nigerian institution. In Africa, the idea of transnational alliance, once thought to be outmoded, has gained new currency. In African America, during a period of increasing social conservatism and ethnic polarization, Africa has re-emerged as a symbol of cultural affirmation. At such an historical moment, Fela's music offers a perspective on race, class, and nation on both sides of the Atlantic. As Professor Veal demonstrates, over three decades Fela synthesized a unique musical language while also clearing -- if only temporarily -- a space for popular political dissent and a type of counter-cultural expression rarely seen in West Africa. In the midst of political turmoil in Africa, as well as renewal of pro-African cultural nationalism throughout the diaspora, Fela's political music functions as a post-colonial art form that uses cross-cultural exchange to voice a unique and powerful African essentialism.

Download or read book Arrest the Music written by Tejumola Olaniyan and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2004-10-29 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold and energetic close-up on one of Africa's most popular and controversial stars.

Download or read book Fela written by Carlos Moore and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Fela Anikulapo Kuti written by Adeshina Afolayan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2022-01-13 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fela Anikulapo Kuti was the Afrobeat music maestro whose life and time provide the lens through which we can outline the postcolonial trajectory of the Nigerian state as well as the dynamics of most other African states. Through the Afrobeat music, Fela did not only challenge consecutive governments in Nigeria, but his rebellious Afrobeat lyrics facilitate a philosophical subtext that enriches the more intellectual Afrocentric discourses. Afrobeat and the philosophy of blackism that Fela enunciated place him right beside Malcolm X, Kwame Nkrumah, Marcus Garvey, and all the others who champion a black and African mode of being in the world. This book traces the emergence of Fela on the music scene, the cultural and political backgrounds that made Afrobeat possible, and the philosophical elements that not only contributed to the formation of Fela's blackism, but what constitutes Fela's philosophical sensibility too.

Download or read book Fela written by John Collins and published by Wesleyan University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-01 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A vibrant and multifaceted portrait of Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti . . . and his role as a giant of modern African music.” —Michael E. Veal, author of Dub Fela: Kalakuta Notes is an evocative account of Fela Kuti—the Afrobeat superstar who took African music into the arena of direct action. With his antiestablishment songs, he dedicated himself to Pan-Africanism and the down-trodden Nigerian masses, or “sufferheads.” In the 1970s, the British/Ghanaian musician and author John Collins met and worked with Fela in Ghana and Nigeria. Kalakuta Notes includes a diary that Collins kept in 1977 when he acted in Fela’s autobiographical film, Black President. The book offers revealing interviews with Fela by the author, as well as with band members, friends, and colleagues. For this second edition, Collins has expanded the original introduction by providing needed context for popular music in Africa in the 1960s and the influences on the artist’s music and politics. In a new concluding chapter, Collins reflects on the legacy of Fela: the spread of Afrobeat, Fela’s musical children, Fela’s Shrine and Kalakuta House, and the annual Felabration. As the dust settles over Fela’s fiery, creative, and controversial career, his Afrobeat groove and political message live on in Kalakuta Notes. A new foreword by Banning Eyre, an up-to-date discography by Ronnie Graham, a timeline, historical photographs, and snapshots by the author are also featured. “As multilayered and significant a document as the singer’s musical contributions. It is a crucial testament about one of the world’s most outspoken and radical artists, and gives deep insight into his life, music and struggles against oppression and mediocrity.” —Journal of World Popular Music

Download or read book Fela written by Michael Veal and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 2000-05-17 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Musician, political critic, and hedonist, international superstar Fela Anikulapo-Kuti created a sensation throughout his career. In his own country of Nigeria he was simultaneously adulated and loathed, often by the same people at the same time. His outspoken political views and advocacy of marijuana smoking and sexual promiscuity offended many, even as his musical brilliance enthralled them. In his creation of afrobeat, he melded African traditions with African American and Afro-Caribbean influences to revolutionize world music. Although harassed, beaten, and jailed by Nigerian authorities, he continued his outspoken and derisive criticism of political corruption at home and economic exploitation from abroad. A volatile mixture of personal characteristics -- charisma, musical talent, maverick lifestyle, populist ideology, and persistence in the face of persecution -- made him a legend throughout Africa and the world. Celebrated during the 1970s as a musical innovator and spokesman for the continent's oppressed masses, he enjoyed worldwide celebrity during the 1980s and was recognized in the 1990s as a major pioneer and elder statesman of African music. By the time of his death in 1997 from AIDS-related complications, Fela had become something of a Nigerian institution. In Africa, the idea of transnational alliance, once thought to be outmoded, has gained new currency. In African America, during a period of increasing social conservatism and ethnic polarization, Africa has re-emerged as a symbol of cultural affirmation. At such an historical moment, Fela's music offers a perspective on race, class, and nation on both sides of the Atlantic. As Professor Veal demonstrates, over three decades Fela synthesized a unique musical language while also clearing -- if only temporarily -- a space for popular political dissent and a type of counter-cultural expression rarely seen in West Africa. In the midst of political turmoil in Africa, as well as renewal of pro-African cultural nationalism throughout the diaspora, Fela's political music functions as a post-colonial art form that uses cross-cultural exchange to voice a unique and powerful African essentialism.

Download or read book Fela written by Trevor Schoonmaker and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2003-07-04 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection is one of two publications in the Fela Project.

Download or read book Fela Anikulapo Kuti written by Jawi Oladipo-Ola and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2011 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fela Anikulapo-Kutiís universal ideas were fresh as dawn. His compositions were sophisticated, a highly 'musical construction'. From 1987, Fela was the only band in the world with two bass guitars in glissade, a form where the music slides between two notes in which all intermediate notes are played. Fela's behaviour was not extreme, when you eliminate his excesses, his socio-political musings indicate a complete intellectual capacity. He chewed up all books by great Africanists and his thoughts went deeper with his analytical mind. His music was opened to the power of the written word and it was the dawn of awareness for Fela's musical orientation, the beginning of his "Felasophy"; a total reawakening into the inhumanity against humanity. He felt for Africa and their wretched lives. Every successive government in Nigeria kicked Fela and through multiple detentions they almost broke his spirit, however during these times he wrote, composed and arranged the best music of his career. Fela Anikulapo-Kuti: The Primary Man Of An African Personality is a dramatic presentation of "Felasophy". It chronicles the music, politics, life and courage of the legendary Afro-beat activist who died on August 2, 1997.

Download or read book Tony Allen written by Tony Allen and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-27 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tony Allen is the autobiography of legendary Nigerian drummer Tony Allen, the rhythmic engine of Fela Kuti's Afrobeat. Conversational, inviting, and packed with telling anecdotes, Allen's memoir is based on hundreds of hours of interviews with the musician and scholar Michael E. Veal. It spans Allen's early years and career playing highlife music in Lagos; his fifteen years with Fela, from 1964 until 1979; his struggles to form his own bands in Nigeria; and his emigration to France. Allen embraced the drum set, rather than African handheld drums, early in his career, when drum kits were relatively rare in Africa. His story conveys a love of his craft along with the specifics of his practice. It also provides invaluable firsthand accounts of the explosive creativity in postcolonial African music, and the personal and artistic dynamics in Fela's Koola Lobitos and Africa 70, two of the greatest bands to ever play African music.

Download or read book Black President written by Trevor Schoonmaker and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published to accompany an exhibition of the same title held at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, 10 July - 28 September 2003, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, 17 April - 4 July 2004 and the Barbican Art Galleries, London, 9 September - 24 October 2004.

Download or read book As the Sun Sets written by Jerri Jheto and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2022-04-25 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is about a personal experience of the musical explosion that transformed Nigeria after the Biafran war to which I was a part of. The musical groups from the Eastern part of the border that helped to ease the pain of a race that was deliberately attacked and forced into an unprepared war. The freedom from colonial rule to the war that crippled the nation. The army rule for over thirty five years, the oppression and depression that followed. A personal experience of politics and religion mixed with tribal sentiments. The will of one over the other. A personal experience of one conscripted but escaped. Recaptured and jailed, escaped again. A refugee seeking safety. What a human deluge.

Download or read book TUPAC AMARU SHAKUR FELA ANIKULAPO KUTI REVOLUTIONARIES OR MARTYRS written by Wale Sasamura Owoeye and published by Pipit Inc.. This book was released on 2020-02-20 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: TUPAC AMARU SHAKUR & FELA ANIKULAPO KUTI – REVOLUTIONARIES OR MARTYRS is a monograph of honour raised in the memory of late Muhiyideen D’Baha Moye of Black Lives Matter movement. The book compares and contrast the two legendary figures of blackism, Tupac and Fela, drawing inferences and interconnections about the activism of the two artists whose life and art epitomized the struggle of the black race for true freedom. The book is written by the foremost Neo-Negritudian, Wale Sasamura Owoeye, author of Sixty-Six Songs

Download or read book The Organ Works of Fela Sowande Cultural Perspectives written by Godwin Sadoh and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2007-10-04 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nigeria has been blessed with a few well-trained organist-composers since the arrival of Christianity in the most populous African country around the 1840s. The institutions established by European missionaries and the colonial administration had a great impact on the emergence of the 'Nigerian organ school'. The musicians had their formative periods at the mission schools, church choirs, and under organ playing apprenticeships. This book focuses on selected organ works by the most celebrated African art musician, Fela Sowande, a Nigerian organist-composer. Fela Sowande is the first African to popularize organ works by natives of Africa in Europe and the United States. He was one of the pioneer composers to incorporate indigenous African elements such as folksongs, rhythms and other types of traditional source materials in solo works for organ. He is considered the most prolific Nigerian composer for solo organ in Nigeria. The discussion of Sowande's music enunciates the relationship between traditional and contemporary musical processes in postcolonial Nigeria. A cultural and/or ethnomusicological analysis of Sowande's selected pieces for organ solo involves an examination of specific indigenous source materials such as rhythmic organization, melodic constructs/thematic materials (music communication), interrelations of music and dance, and elements of musical conception.

Download or read book The Ikoyi Prison Narratives The Spiritualism and Political Philosophy of Fela Kuti written by Majemite Jaboro and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2012-07-10 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Afrobeat. Politics. Spirits. August 2 1997. Africa's foremost musician, the mysterious and magical Fela Anikulapo Kuti dies from AIDS complications. He had invented a new musical genre called Afrobeat which was a fusion of African rhythms, jazz and funk. In his music heavily laced with politics and spirituality, he probed possibilities and reflected on our existence. The author took down notes when Fela and four other members of the Afrika 70 Organisation were charged with murder in 1993.

Download or read book Daughters of the Stone written by Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2009-09-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship for Writers It is the mid-1800s. Fela, taken from Africa, is working at her second sugar plantation in colonial Puerto Rico, where her mistress is only too happy to benefit from her impressive embroidery skills. But Fela has a secret. Before she and her husband were separated and sold into slavery, they performed a tribal ceremony in which they poured the essence of their unborn child into a very special stone. Fela keeps the stone with her, waiting for the chance to finish what she started. When the plantation owner approaches her, Fela sees a better opportunity for her child, and allows the man to act out his desire. Such is the beginning of a line of daughters connected by their intense love for one another, and the stories of a lost land. Mati, a powerful healer and noted craftswoman, is grounded in a life that is disappearing in a quickly changing world. Concha, unsure of her place, doesn't realize the price she will pay for rejecting her past. Elena, modern and educated, tries to navigate between two cultures, moving to the United States, where she will struggle to keep her family together. Carisa turns to the past for wisdom and strength when her life in New York falls apart. The stone becomes meaningful to each of the women, pulling them through times of crisis and ultimately connecting them to one another. Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa shows great skill and warmth in the telling of this heartbreaking, inspirational story about mothers and daughters, and the ways in which they hurt and save one another.

Download or read book The Architects of Existence written by Teresa N. Washington and published by Oya's Tornado. This book was released on 2014-02-25 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Queens of Afrobeat written by Dotun Ayobade and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Queens of Afrobeat, the women of Afrobeat music--a unique blend of jazz, soul, highlife, and West African rhythms--are finally given the recognition they deserve. This extensive study takes a multifaceted view of the storied lives of the women behind Fela Kuti's activist music. Dotun Ayobade's wide-ranging research pulls from interviews with surviving queens, ethnographic narratives, the exploration of newspaper archives, and close readings of album covers, photographs, and promotional materials to help us see and understand the women who surrounded Fela Kuti on stage and in everyday life. Not only were these artists crucial performers and backup singers for Kuti's most important compositions, they also played key roles in his activism and campaigns of social protest against the Nigerian government in the 1970s. Drawing on previously untapped material, Queens of Afrobeat weaves together an intricate narrative of women's participation in popular music. The stories of these remarkable women transform and uniquely personalize our understanding of the politics and performance of one of the major modern musical traditions in Africa.