Incredible music from Africa

Afrobeat only turns up 9 hits on watmm, so I figured I'd make this thread in celebration of one of the greatest musicians of all time, Fela Kuti.

Fela Anikulapo Kuti (1938 — 1997), or simply Fela, was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, pioneer of Afrobeat music, and human rights activist. - Wikipedia

Fela Kuti & Egypt 80 - CBB (Confusion Break Bones)

[youtubehd]BBD2CXMBWQ4[/youtubehd]

Deadi bodi geti accidenti. Yee pa!

Confusion breaki boni. Yepa!

Na double wahala for deadi bodi

And the owner of deadi bodi

Double wahala for deadi bodi...

---

Fela Kuti was the mouthpiece of Nigerian counterculture in the 1970s. He developed a style of music known as Afrobeat - an amalgamation of Yoruba rhythms, Ghanaian Highlife, jazz, American funk and pidgin English. Fela loved getting up the nose of the authorities. He married 27 women in one day, publicly smoked marijuana despite the threat of prison, declared Kalakuta an independent state, and was often beaten up and imprisoned.

... He recounts the horrific story of the day in 1977 when soldiers under Olusegun Obasanjo's military regime stormed Fela's compound. Ironically, Fela and the recently retired president had grown up together in the town of Abeokuta, a few hours' drive from Lagos - Fela in a middle-class family, the son of a preacher, and Obasanjo in a poor farming family. Fela had released his record Zombie as a rebuke to the army, comparing them to robots, and his friends had burned an army motorcycle during one altercation. In retaliation, 1,000 of Obasanjo's soldiers surrounded Kalakuta.

"Fela didn't know what was happening," Olayinka recalls. "The soldiers began to climb the fence, then they started shooting. Fela was inside the house but he jumped out of his compound and ran to his friend's house. Then the soldiers threw Fela's mother out of the window."

Fela's mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, was Nigeria's first feminist activist, and the first woman to drive a car in the country. She broke her hip in the fall and later died from her injuries. The original Kalakuta Republic was subsequently burned to the ground, but Fela's response was to move into a new house and place a coffin on its roof with a banner that read: "This is where justice was murdered."

- The Guardian

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Fela Kuti & Egypt 80 - ODOO (Overtake Don Overtake Overtake)

[youtubehd]Q2aArlIHnOU[/youtubehd]

My friend wan come buy fan

Him dey sweat for him dey sleep for room

Him dey fall level of tree

The fan na seventy-five naira

My friend him dey follow salary

Him dey try to save and save and save

Every time he nearly buy the fan

Government go add ten naira more

Every time he nearly buy the fan

Government go start one activity

Till the fan reach two hundred naira

My friend nearly die, he never die

My friend he no wan die

Die-die no dey for him dictionary

For where? Huh...

Him dey try to save and save again

Him save for one year and six months

Inside cupboard

Under pillow

Under, under cooking pot

Inside socks

Under carpet

Him dey on his way to buy the fan

When alarm come blow

[Fela vocalizes a police siren]

Government announce second tier

Everything come tear to pieces

Everything come expensive

Even water become expensive

Second bass, jare... pop!

Fan don become seven hundred naira

Me and my friend start to look ourselves

He remain small make my friend dey cry

Na laugh laugh he catch monkey

Na now he come understand him life

Enjoyment can never come him way

Na now him life dey go reverse

In Africa, him fatherland

One more time...

[Chorus]

Soldier go, soldier come!

Soldier come, soldier go!

i really have nothing to add to this thread except that this is a great OP and fela kuti is awesome.

rhodes, dey do own

i was hit by afro beat only recently despite vague memories of fela kuti listeners in the family. shit has the power of bob marley and aphex twin put together

my ears never managed to take jams of this lenght with this smoothness, thanks for posting

been a big fan for years

if anyone wants to discover similarly amazing musics, tune into giles peterson on radio 1

i love me some fela - and whilst not afrobeat, i definitely regard the shangaan electro stuff as an evolution of it. the norman records compilation album was a big fucking deal for me last year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXE6_j1N7o8

fucking amazing stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFXEZeVgmCg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R7W8S_EYn0&feature=related

I've been a fan for about 10 years.

Fela's best album ->

Tony Allen is a drum god.

For the record, his name is pronounced "Fe-la" like "Goodfellas". Not like "FAY-La".

I hate it when people pronounce it wrong. It hurts my ears. Proof @ 7:57 ...>>>>>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdKO5QZ9Z60

I love African music in general and particularly love this one........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PIj2hweXfo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcwvEtg14Iw

this shit is pretty amazing too and i daresay pretty IDM.

stuff like this is unbeatable in every way:
[youtubehd]dN1ZaKrZDgs[/youtubehd]

this movie got me into african music, west african specifically.

[youtubehd]t6GIEs6j4rY[/youtubehd]

for the past 3 months i haven't listened to any western music per say...

just check this dub section at 1:45:

[youtubehd]vaJkW9ha1RI[/youtubehd]

some more:

[youtubehd]wasK4qDauQE[/youtubehd]

[youtubehd]cUl2yiKx3oI[/youtubehd]

[youtubehd]bwaJ7Dowl8k[/youtubehd]

i'm extremelly addicted to all this k7 releases that youssou and super etoile put out in the 80's:

Volume 3 Indépendance - YouTube
Volume 4 Bandjoly Ndiaye - YouTube
Volume 5 Yarou - YouTube
Volume 6 Djamil - YouTube
Volume 8 Immigres - Bitim Rew - YouTube
Volume 9 Africa Deebeub - YouTube
Volume 10 Ndobine - YouTube
Volume 11 Bekoor - YouTube
Volume 12 Jamm-La Paix - YouTube
Volume 14 Gaïndé - YouTube
Volume 15 Set - YouTube

here's a great doc on mbalax music from senegal:
Youssou N'Dour : Eyes Open - YouTube

  On 5/8/2011 at 5:53 PM, chaosmachine said:

Afrobeat only turns up 9 hits on watmm

http://forum.watmm.com/topic/79400-youssou-ndour/

http://forum.watmm.com/topic/79049-mbalax/

not sure if it fits afrobeat description however...

Nice thread mate!

http://youtu.be/h9S0T0eCdy4

I love threads like this. more please

the nigeria 70 compilations are killer and worth hunting down

awesome tapes from africa are cool also, like PPU but re-issuing old african bands on cassette and digital

I went to a leaving party for a work colleague last night. The guy meant to be doing the music was late so I managed to plug the gap with a bit of Fela from my ipod. She's originally from Sierra Leone and loves a bit of Fela.

Another colleague who is Nigerian got me a Fela t-shirt from Fela's compound last year when he went home for a bit. It's apparently now a museum/tourist attraction.

Fucking love awesome tapes from africa. This is a personal fave:

http://www.awesometapes.com/2010/01/aby-ngana-diop-liital-face-dieuleul.html

  On 8/10/2013 at 11:01 AM, hello spiral said:

Fucking love awesome tapes from africa. This is a personal fave:

 

http://www.awesometapes.com/2010/01/aby-ngana-diop-liital-face-dieuleul.html

 

thanks for this site spiral!

check out youssou's k7 collection i just posted, it's the same genre, mbalax, just like aby ngana.

this user as an extraordinary collection, all great rips from k7! some even better than the stuff i was able to get on cd... http://www.youtube.com/user/lousndiaye/videos

@chaosmachine

great fucking opening thread, m8.

http://www.afropop.org/

  On 8/10/2013 at 9:50 AM, sun drugs said:

the nigeria 70 compilations are killer and worth hunting down

Agreed. The Ghana Special off Soundwave Records is killer as well.

I've been on a huge Afrobeat/Highlife kick lately, mostly 60's/70's music from Ghana and Nigeria. Here are my favorites.

African Brothers Band (Ghana)

Mahotella Queens (South Africa): This song is really funky, but their album "Meet the Mahotella Queens" contains a lot more laid back summer day tracks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbXMyxdzyhU

Bola Johnson (Nigeria)

Shit, I didn't even know this track was on Lagos Jump. Guess I need to buy another album.

[youtubehd]bwKb6M2kGRI[/youtubehd]

highlife owns everything