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'Fela Kuti: Fear No Man' podcast explores icon's music and fight against oppression

(SOUNDBITE OF FELA KUTI SONG, "NO AGREEMENT")

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Fela Kuti is one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. That's a quote. And, in fact, it's the mission statement for a new podcast series by Jad Abumrad.

(SOUNDBITE OF FELA KUTI SONG, "NO AGREEMENT")

MARTIN: Abumrad was the co-host of the public radio program "Radiolab," and he recently won a prestigious Peabody Award for his series, "Dolly Parton's America." The first two episodes of his new podcast are available now. It's called "Fela Kuti: Fear No Man." Jad, I'm going to take one of the questions that you asked in the podcast, and I'm going to ask you, how do you describe Fela Kuti to somebody who doesn't know?

JAD ABUMRAD: You could call him, you know, the Nigerian James Brown 'cause there are elements of funk in his style - it's got jazz, it's got West African drumming. But that doesn't really capture him because there's layers and layers of movement politics. So you'd have to, like, add in a Malcolm X and a Muhammad Ali. He's all of those people in one because he was making music that, you know, was just great to dance to. I mean, it still kills in a party. But he was also structuring his music so that the people dancing would have these moments of awakening. And they would suddenly, like, step back and look at their lives and think, my God, look at this madness. We have to do something.

(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "FELA KUTI: FEAR NO MAN")

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: I saw the light.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: I was just, like, you know, like...

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: He sucks you in. I mean, he has that light bulb effect on you. You come into yourself, and, you know, it's a moment of introspection, too, because you realize that you haven't been as attuned as you probably should have.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: All the stuff he was singing was just new to me. You know, I was just learning so much about Nigerian history through Fela that I had not learned in school.

MARTIN: So Nigeria became independent from British colonial rule in 1960. So tell us what was happening in Nigeria around the same time that Fela Kuti was becoming popular.

ABUMRAD: Yeah. So, you know, right around 1960, when the country declared its independence, there was this wave of optimism and a lot of the, you know, European-educated...

MARTIN: Expats started going home, right?

ABUMRAD: Yeah, they started coming home to try and build the nation. The wave of optimism kind of, like, crashed on the shore and receded and left big chunks of foam behind because these sort of neo-colonial structures built around oil money sort of came in. And then you basically had the Nigerian ruling class beholden to British gas companies and then German and then American. And then there was corruption that came on the heels of that. Fela really is the voice. I would say he's the soundtrack of that post-independence falling of optimism and rising of cynicism. He's the guy who says, this isn't OK what's happening. We need to do something.

MARTIN: You have an entire episode about his most popular song, "Zombie." So tell us about how that piece was received first by fans and then by the military leadership of Nigeria.

ABUMRAD: To say it's a flagrant attack on the regime would actually be an understatement. It's basically calling the soldiers brainless droids.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ZOMBIE")

FELA KUTI: (Singing) Zombie o, zombie. Zombie o, zombie.

ABUMRAD: They kill when they're told to kill.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ZOMBIE")

KUTI: (Singing) Zombie o, zombie.

ABUMRAD: They go left when they're told to go left. They die when they're told to die.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ZOMBIE")

KUTI: (Singing) Zombie no go stop, unless you tell 'em to stop.

ABUMRAD: And the song was immediately banned on the radio. You couldn't play it, but apparently it was playing out of every house, every shanty across Lagos. I mean, he really, really poked the military in the eye. So in 1977, there was an altercation with the police. They came, and they burned his compound down. And apparently, one of the inciting incidents was that Fela got up on top of the roof with his sax, and he played "Zombie" down to the soldiers.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ZOMBIE")

KUTI: (Singing) Tell 'em to go kill. A joro, jara, joro.

ABUMRAD: So that song really became the point at which even some of his followers thought he had taken it too far.

MARTIN: You know, I can't gloss over just how much brutality Fela endured, right? You've just told us about how his compound was attacked multiple times, right? His mother was thrown from a second-story window. She would later die from complications following that incident. He was riddled with scars from past injuries. There's, like, a famous picture of him.

ABUMRAD: It's crazy, yeah.

MARTIN: What effect did you think that had on him?

ABUMRAD: When they threw his mother out of a window, that's when you really see him - a shift happen in him. And his - you know, we talked to his kids, who talked about that's when he starts getting into some, like, questionable spiritual practices.

(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "FELA KUTI: FEAR NO MAN")

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: He spent the rest of his life trying to communicate with his mom. So a lot of charlatans could come to him and tell him, ah, Fela, I'm communicating directly with your mom. And he would listen to them because of that need.

ABUMRAD: It's at that point where you really see the cost, where, you know, ultimately, the state does win, unfortunately, you know?

MARTIN: Why do you say that?

ABUMRAD: The violence basically extracted a toll that was maybe too much for him to bear. But in the long run, what I find really beautiful about Fela's story is that you see protest movements, like, long after his death - you know, in 2020, as the George Floyd protests were happening in America. In Nigeria, you had the End SARS movement, which is a protest also against police brutality. And there, you know, you had tens of thousands of young people on the streets all playing Fela. Like, he's still soundtracking these freedom movements. So there is some way in which, you know, there is a kind of endless return of him that speaks to a kind of immortality.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "UNKNOWN SOLDIER")

KUTI: (Singing) One thousand soldiers them dey come. Left, right, left, right.

MARTIN: That's Jad Abumrad. His new podcast series is called "Fela Kuti: Fear No Man." The first two episodes are streaming now. More are coming on Wednesdays. Jad, thank you so much for talking with us, and thanks so much for this work.

ABUMRAD: Oh, my God. Thank you so much, Michel. This has been such an honor.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "UNKNOWN SOLDIER")

KUTI: (Singing) Left, right, left, right, left, right, left. Where these 1,000 soldiers them dey go? Left, right, left, right, left, right, left. Look o. Left, right, left, right, left, right, left. Na Fela house Kalakuta. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Michel Martin is the weekend host of All Things Considered, where she draws on her deep reporting and interviewing experience to dig in to the week's news. Outside the studio, she has also hosted "Michel Martin: Going There," an ambitious live event series in collaboration with Member Stations.
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