About

Afro-beat pioneer Fela Kuti was never more pissed off at his homeland's military government than in 1974. In that year, the Nigerian police persistently raided his compound, the Kalkuta Republic, as a result of Kuti's growing public opposition to the ruling junta. Having beaten a narcotics charge, the Lagos police swarmed Kuti's home in an attempt to plant a big fat joint on the premises and arrest him for possession.

Quick in thought as well as funk, Fela swallowed the joint. The on-looking officers promptly pushed him into the back of their wagon. Their immaculate plan was to wait for Kuti to dump his morning load for proof. They would then test the turd for THC and, according to the cunning plan, throw Kuti in the choky for a very long time, effectively ridding the Nigerian police of their number one gadfly. Though raised in what might be termed a middle-class environment, Fela Kuti was very much a people's champion, and his famous testing of authority was what saved him in the end-- he was able to exchange his stool for a less-enhanced specimen.

Fela Kuti had been an attentive apprentice when he jammed with some of James Brown's band members in a Los Angeles recording studio in 1969. But sadly, Kuti failed to secure the proper work Visas, and after four days, the Immigration and Nationalization Service threw him out of the country. Of course, Kuti had already gotten what he needed-- James Brown's funk and some Black Panther literature. He would turn his old band into a JB's-style groove machine, re-name it the Africa 70, and bring it on to the worms in power. – Pitchfork