CELEBRATING 19TH ANNIVERSARY OF FELA ANIKULAPO KUTI

Today marks 19 years since the demise of Africa’s Afrobeat pioneer, social maverick,  human rights activist and political maverick, Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti also known as Abami Eda; we thought to share and celebrate the legend with some interesting facts about him

*Born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti in Abeokuta, Nigeria. He lived from Oct. 15, 1938, to Aug. 2, 1997, aged 58yrs.

*his father, Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, an Anglican minister and school principal, was the first president of the Nigeria Union of Teachers. Also the composer of the famous Abeokuta Anthem “lori oke oun petele...mayo lóri olumo”

* His mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, was the first woman to drive a car in Nigeria.  An educator and women's rights activist that led a protest against Native Authorities, especially against the Alake of Egbaland, and the Oba subsequently relinquished his crown for a time due to the affair.

* Fela is a first cousin to the Nigerian writer and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, the first African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

*He attended the Abeokuta Grammar School in Abeokuta and later he was sent to London in 1958 to study medicine but decided to study music instead at the Trinity College of Music.

*He started out as a Trumpeter and was only forced to learn to play the Saxophone after his star Sax player- Igo Chiko left the Band in 1972, resulting in Fela being booed off stage in Ghana in the same year.

*In 1963, Fela moved back to Nigeria and trained as a radio producer for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation. He first called his music Afrobeat In 1969.

*He then formed the Kalakuta Republic (According to Lindsay Barrett, the name "Kalakuta" derived from the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta dungeon in India.) named after the notorious Police Cell Block where he was detained in 1974, was open to any and every homeless drifter, where Fela would give them a roof and a meal as well as some kind of job- in many instances.

*Fela set up a nightclub in the Empire Hotel, first named the Afro-Spot and then the Afrika Shrine, where he both performed regularly and officiated at personalized Yoruba traditional ceremonies in honour of his nation’s ancestral faith

*He said that his original middle name of Ransome was a slave name; thus changed his middle name to Anikulapo (meaning “He who carries death in his pouch”, with the interpretation: “I will be the master of my own destiny and will decide when it is time for death to take me”).

*He made the decision to sing in Pidgin English so that his music could be enjoyed by individuals all over Africa, where the local languages were spoken are very diverse and numerous.

*In 1977, Fela and the Afrika ’70 released the album Zombie, a scathing attack on Nigerian soldiers using the zombie metaphor to describe the methods of the Nigerian military. The album was a smash hit and infuriated the government, setting off a vicious attack against the Kalakuta Republic, during which one thousand soldiers attacked the commune. Fela was severely beaten, and his elderly mother (whose house was located opposite the commune) was thrown from a window, causing fatal injuries that led to her demise.

*Fela did not perform songs again after he had already recorded them.

*In 1978, Fela married 27 women, many of whom were his dancers, composers, and singers to mark the anniversary of the attack on the Kalakuta Republic.  He was briefly listed in the Guinness book of records for the most number of women married at one ceremony- 27, in 1978

* In 1979, he formed his own political party – MOP (Movement of the People). He also ran for president of Nigeria twice.

*In 1984, Muhammadu Buhari‘s government, of which Kuti was a vocal opponent, jailed him on a charge of currency smuggling which Amnesty International and others denounced as politically motivated. Amnesty designated him a prisoner of conscience, and his case was also taken up by other human rights groups. After his release 20 months later by General Ibrahim Babangida, he divorced his twelve remaining wives.

* He was given a brand new Mercedes Benz 280 Limo by his Record Company, which he reputedly used regularly in loading up filthy firewood/charcoal used in cooking to feed the masses in his self-styled Republic.

*In 1989, Fela and Egypt ’80 released the anti-apartheid Beasts of No Nation that depicts on its cover U.S. President Ronald Reagan, UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and South African State President Pieter Willem Botha,

*On August 2rd, 1997, Fela Kuti died from “Kaposi’s sarcoma”, which could be brought on, in more virulent form by AIDS. Fela’s death was announced the next day by his younger brother Olikoye Ransome-Kuti,who was already a prominent AIDS activist and former Minister of Health. More than a million people attended Fela’s funeral at the site of the old Shrine compound.