Fela: This Bitch of a Life [Paperback]

Carlos Moore (Author), Margaret Busby (Introduction), Gilberto Gil (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2009

African superstar, composer, singer, and musician, as well as mystic and political activist, Nigerian Fela Kuti, born in 1938, was controversy personified. He was swept to international celebrity on a wave of scandal and flamboyance, and when he died of AIDS in 1997, more than a million people attended his funeral. But what was he really like, this man who could as easily arouse violent hostility as he could unswerving loyalty?

 

Carlos Moore's unique biography, based on hours of conversation and told in Fela's first-person vernacular, reveals the icon's complex personality and tumultuous existence. Moore includes interviews with fifteen of his queens (wives); photos; and an updated discography.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Fela was an incredible pioneer. His rhythms and influence have been absorbed into so much of the music around today, and the musical world owes him a debt of gratitude.” —Stevie Wonder

“His music was exotic, royal, powerful, and captured the spirit of Mother Africa. He was respected and loved not only for his music but for his intellect and his dedication to African traditions. Fela was one of the most courageous individuals I have ever met." —Randy Weston

“An amazing musical genius with a boisterous sense of humor, Fela was an immovable rock in his fight against corruption. Surviving several immoral military regimes, it is a miracle that he died from natural causes rather than their torture.” —Hugh Masekela

“Fela's biography is important to us all now because it sounds like he is speaking to us from the world beyond.  It goes with our aphorism which says that 'Fela Lives.' He lives in the minds and hearts of us all who knew and loved him and to whom he imparted so much knowledge and joy.  I personally look forward to reading this book once again, as it provides so much understanding into the mind of such a GREAT MAN.” —Femi Kuti

“The most charismatic musician to have emerged from Africa in the past 40 years.” —Telegraph

“Africa’s most important musical export.” —Africa Music

“[H]e has influenced music in Africa more than anyone else." —Guardian

“[T]he most influential and significant musician ever to emerge from Africa." —Time Out

About the Author

Carlos Moore is a political scientist and an ethnologist. He is an honorary research fellow at the School for Graduate Studies and Research of the University of the West Indies–Kingston and the author of Pichón: Race and Revolution in Castro's Cuba. Gilberto Gil is a composer, a bandleader, a singer, and a guitarist and has served as the Brazilian minister of culture since 2003. Margaret Busby is a writer, a critic, a broadcaster, and the editor of Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writing by Women of African Descent.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Lawrence Hill Books; 1st pr of this edition (May 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556528353
• ISBN-13: 978-1556528354
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #163,071 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Get, Good!!, May 26, 2009

By 

Hrw "Hrw" (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fela: This Bitch of a Life (Paperback)

This is one of the better biography's I've read about an Afrakan.This book talk's to the people who knew Fela. Who lived in the Kalakuta Republic house. I actually read this book may be twenty years ago, because of my interest in Fela and his music. My original copy got ripped off, and this is a "must have" book to try and understand this great musician and human being. Hrw

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Little coverage of Fela's music, but plenty about his wacky personality and life at the Kalakuta compound, August 22, 2011

By 

Christopher Culver - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fela: This Bitch of a Life (Paperback)

FELA is a biography of the Nigerian musician and political activist Fela Kuti, originally published in 1982. The Cuban ethnologist Carlos Moore spent hours interviewing Fela and produced an overview of Fela's life and values that Fela authorized. Generally the biography proceeds in the first person, a sign that it was transcribed from interviews.

Moore's biography doesn't speak much of Fela's music, but rather Fela's life and times, especially his numerous run-ins with Nigeria's military regime. There is some good coverage of his formative years, namely his early studies in England, his 1960s doldrums, and his trip to the United States that changed everything.

The term "authorized biography" might lead on to expect that sordid and risque details are left out, but Fela was so sexually flamboyant that he insisted Moore cover his relationships with women in depth. The singer believed in free love and would bed any groupie who came to his compound, usually enjoying multiple women a day. A few years before, Fela had infamously married 27 female members of his entourage and he invited Moore to interview the 15 "queens" who now remained with him. While Fela's lack of restraint and misogynism are appalling, one does have to admire the tenacity of these women who stayed with their man through parental disapproval, beatings by police and soldiers and imprisonment.

The 1982 text has been left unchanged, but Moore has added a poignant epilogue that describes Fela's deterioration over the 1980s and 1990s. First, Fela became increasingly paranoid, believing that spirits were talking to him and that close friends were CIA agents out to get him. Some of his longtime associates left him at this point, and his musicianship suffered, though ironically this is when he was in the greatest demand by international music labels. Then, multiple imprisonments, the regime of Sani Abacha and AIDS managed to silence him over his last years. In compiling a Fela discography and reading critical commentary, I had been puzzled by the obscurity of his late career, and Moore's biography explains why Fela's Seventies achievements form the core of his output.

All in all, as a Fela Kuti fan, I found Moore's biography informative and enjoyable. It could have used more discussion of Fela's music (there's nothing here about his relationship with his band members or stylistic evolution), but it was certainly still worthwhile.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FELA This Bitch Of A Life, May 15, 2010

By 

Jane Paresi "Janecarol" (Connecticut) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Fela: This Bitch of a Life (Paperback)

This was a down to earth book....

I enjoyed it very much, and have been a fan of Fela's music for at least 20 years..

A good book about an outstanding Artist......behind the scenes of the problems in Nigeria and how

Fela's life and the times, influenced his music....