Club Contact

The new MP3 blog from London's club Contact. The idea is to allow people to hear new music they wouldn't have otherwise found but, if anyone has any copyright issues with a particular song, i'll take the link down. Songs are only available for a limited amount of time.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Every DJ should carry at least a couple of Fela Kuti records in their collection. Not only is his trademark Afro-Beat funk some of the most captivating music ever recorded, his songs tend to last ages so you can put one on and go away to do something else for fifteen minutes which is particularly welcome if you've been at the decks for four hours without a break.

The details of Kuti's life might come as a surprise to anyone conditioned to think of dead Sixties rockers or Seventies punks as the height of rebel cool. Setting up your own country is a world away from throwing TVs out of hotel windows or driving cars into swimming pools. Anyone wanting a lesson in how to raise hell could take a few tips from Africa's greatest pop legend. Politically outspoken at a time of dictatorial repression, he was viewed as such a threat by the government that his anti-military hit Zombie triggered a raid by an army battalion that left his mother dead and his compound in ruins. It didn't stop him twice trying to run for President of Nigeria though.

He was quite the libertine as well, marrying twenty-seven girls in one ceremony in 1978. His views on women probably wouldn't have found much favour with his feminist activist mother but they do flavour one of my favourite of his records, Lady, in which he decries the fact that African women won't salute him and want first choice of his cigars. Presumably, he had to buy in bulk.

Buy Fela Kuti Stuff

Fela Kuti - Lady

2 Comments:

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