Fela: The Life And Times Of An African Musical Icon [Paperback]

Michael Veal (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 17, 2000

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 1970's as a musical innovator and spokesman for the continent's oppressed masses, he enjoyed worldwide celebrity during the 1980's and was recognized in the 1990's 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 a 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. Author note: Michael E. Veal is Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at Yale University. In addition to being thoroughly grounded in the literature on Nigeria, African music, and the world music scene, he played as a guest saxophonist with Fela and his band Egypt 80, and has conducted interviews with Fela himself, and with his colleagues and other Nigerian musicians.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Raucous, uninhibited and proud, Fela was one of Africa's most intriguing personalities, for his controversial public persona as much as for his music. It's difficult to say for what Fela, born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, was best known: his band publicized Afropop in the 1980s; he repeatedly spoke out against unfair politics in Africa and abroad; his life was abundant with drugs and sex. This exhaustive and objective profile, written by a Yale ethnomusicology professor, examines the Nigerian superstar's life and work from 1938 to his death in 1997. Veal traces Fela's roots to the diverse town of Abeokuta, noting the musical influences left by family and community members there. Following a typically mischievous childhood, Fela pursued an education at Trinity College of Music in London. Soon he and his orchestra were touring the U.S. under the name Nigeria 70, developing the new sound of Afropop. Although the tour was not a popular breakthrough, their subsequent return to Nigeria placed them on the budding African music stage. The book goes on to survey Fela's life at home and worldwide, detailing his imprisonment and physical abuse, his performances, his listeners' reactions and his compositions. Fela covered political corruption, mysticism, frustration with Western views on Africa and other significant subjects in his music, all the while continuing a sexually promiscuous life. Veal has taken on the staggering task of portraying a musician/politician/rebel, and he executes it well.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Fela was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, in 1938 into an upper-middle-class family whose members included several well-known educators and religious figures. In 1958, he was sent to London's Trinity College of Music, where he discovered Charlie Parker and John Coltrane and soon formed his own band, Koola Lobitos. Over the years, he developed a jazz-funk fusion style dubbed Afrobeat. Little known in America, Fela recorded dozens of albums and became an international superstar with a social and political conscience. His blistering attacks on Nigeria's corrupt military government landed him in jail, in exile, and in danger of losing his life. Veal (ethnomusicology, Yale) became interested in Fela nearly 20 years ago as a student at Boston's Berklee College of Music. Extensive notes, a comprehensive bibliography, and a discography reflect the book's scholarly credentials. This is an important work on world music's most influential figure since Bob Marley, but most cost-conscious libraries will want to purchase the paperback edition.DDan Bogey, Clearfield Cty. P.L., Federation, Curwensville, PA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Temple University Press (May 17, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566397650
• ISBN-13: 978-1566397650
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.9 x 10 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #659,640 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #36 in Books > History > Africa > Nigeria
  • #54 in Books > Arts & Photography > Music > Musical Genres > Dance

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense September 7, 2000

By Arash Saedinia

Format:Paperback

A timely exploration of the father of Afro-beat. Veal, who we learn had occasion to play with Fela and spent time at the Shrine, is obviously a fan of the music and his enthusiasm is palpable. Veal's work is distinguished on many levels. As an ethnomusicologist, Veal offers rigorous descriptions and insights into the compositional aspects of Fela's work. We are given the specifics of Fela's innovations and refinements with Afro-beat. Veal locates Fela's accomplishments within the context of its forbears (E.T. Mensah, James Brown, John Coltrane, etc.)and 20th century African/Afrodiaporic music in general. From Nkrumah to Obasanjo, Veal's discussion of Nigerian/African culture and politics is well researched and thoughtful. There are great nuggets of biographical information from Fela's brief feud with Paul McCartney to November 14th, "Fela Day" in Berkeley (go figure). Veal offers a wealth of information on Fela's family and the impact his parents (his mother in particular) had on his musical and political development. We get the blow-by-blow account of Fela's confrontations with the Nigerian authorities (often, as with the Kalakuta Massacre, in harrowing detail). On the critical throretical tip, Veal 'samples' Gilroy, Jameson, Fanon, Spivak (and others), engaging in a extended discussion of Fela's compositions as postcolonial 'texts.' Though at times distractingly academic, Veal is rigorous in his deconstruction of Fela and gender, the "specific symbolic and psychological functions" of strategic historical essentialism, mysticism, etc., avoiding the cheap and oversimplistic assessments that often surround the man (often, as Veal notes, in service of hegemonic notions of "civilization"). There is much I loved about this book: the bits about Fela's "punk" approach, the rejoinder to jazzbo(zos) and their complaints about the lack of technical virtuosity in Fela's playing, the similarities between Fela's work and blaxploitation cinema, the Yoruban (tragic) basis of his music, his later compositions as underrated "African symphonies." Veal isn't afraid to write about Fela's misguided relationship with Professor Hindu, the emptiness of Fela's vaguely anarchic rhetoric as a concrete political agenda (Fela wasn't kidding about his aspirations), the problematics of Fela's lifestyle (too much pot, rampant and unprotected sex) and the effect of his lifestyle on his wives. I would have liked to have seen more on the parallels between Fela's development of Afro-beat and the stylistic exchanges with the J.B.s, and the Afrodiasporic interchanges that led to the development of hip-hop and modern dancehall. More on Dennis Bovell's involvement with Fela and more than passing reference to the Biafran conflict. The passage on Fela's continuing influence (and the intense rediscovery taking place as we speak by a new generation of musicians and music lovers) is all too brief. But these are minor quibbles. Veal has written a marvelous book on a man who was, by turns, confrontational, generous, autocratic, wild, and always brilliant. Essential reading on an essential figure. Long live Fela!

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars It's about time! July 31, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Fela is almost as important as Bob Marley in the world of black music, but no one has really written a serious book about him until now, and Michael Veal's book is an excellent one in my opinion. Sometimes it's a bit academic but it still provides a lot of detail on Fela's entire life, on the music of his entire career, and all of the Nigerian political backgound, which is substantial. I love Fela's music and I knew he was a legend, but I never quite realized how he put his life on the line to make the music he made and say the things he said, and how heavy it became between him and the Nigerian government. And I also never realized how crazy he was - not surprising considering the fact that he was a brilliant (insane?) artist, and also considering how heavy things became as time went on. That this man managed to survive as long as he did and turn out so much great music is nothing short of miraculous! I think the book is an invaluable document of the political and musical legacy of the 1960s as it developed in Africa during the 1970s and 1980s. I learned a lot about Africa, not only musically but culturally and politically too.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Fela Deserves Better June 30, 2007

By Classic Gibbon

Format:Paperback

I have mixed feelings about this book and while any book about Fela Kuti is to be welcomed, I don't think this is the definitive one and I do think that Fela's legacy deserves better.

There is no doubt that the author is probably the most well informed of all those who have written about this iconic figure, the man who was the most important musician ever to come out of Africa. The research is unquestionably thorough and there is as much detail as any admirer would wish to know. The problem, for me, is that any biographer should be invisible in the work he's writing. Michael Veal, unfortunately, isn't and at times his presence looms larger than the subject of his book.

Throughout the narrative there are long sections where the author writes an analysis of Fela and his relationship to the African experience. These passages are written in the most stilted and uncomfortable academic manner. The effect of this is to give the impression that the work is a cut and paste job between outside sources and one of the author's academic theses, an impression which renders the book an uncomfortable mix of good biography and dull collegiate essaying. There were times when reading these sections I wondered just what Fela would have made of this awkward literary style - and I suspect he would have been dismissive and written a song which parodied it.

The other fault with the book is the distinct lack of objectivity from the author. That Michael Veal is in awe of the man is not in doubt, but awe is not the best starting place for a biography. The dichotomy of the contrasting aspects of Fela's personality is acknowledged on many occasions, but there is absolutely no attempt to analyse the negative aspects of his character. There is no examination of how Fela's stance in representing the poor and downtrodden contrasts with his ill treatment of his band members, there is no analysis of how, later in life such a forceful personality came under the influence of such an obvious charlatan as Dr Hindu and there is no mention, whatsoever, of the violence and brutality meted out by Fela's own people to those who lived in his commune. Details of which are well documented by other authors and numerous journalists. A biography should look at all aspects of the subject's life and this one fails the reader with excessive bias and a lack of balance.

Michael Veal's involvement in maintaining interest in Fela and his music is to be welcomed. His active support in the ten years since the death of this icon and his involvement in facilitating the current availability of much of Fela's early, and more obscure work, is nothing short of admirable. Perhaps the final step would be a wholesale edit of this biography to produce a balanced and more readable work. Then, perhaps, we would have the definitive story of Fela Kuti.