Kuti Tuesdays: Fela Anikulapo Kuti & The Africa 70 - Confusion (1974)

This past week, I've been debating whether or not to blow my Fela load too quickly. After all, he has a great catalog of music to choose from. But as I've been trying to decide what was worth putting up this week, all I could really get the energy to do was my favorite. To prepare for Confusion, simply rewind the clocks one year from 1975 to 1974. Nigeria and Lagos are no better or worse, really, as the cover implies brutality and war are commonplace. As our previous spotlight highlighted, Kuti was a leader of the people tired of this state of life. His goals were grand, becoming president of the country chief among them. And to spread his propoganda, Kuti used a unique tool: music. With Confusion, Tony Allen and Kuti's keyboardist begin with a 4 minute flirtation, imitating a chugging train and fleeting emotions of excitement in alternate motions. Then, after a long silence, we are suddenly at our destination, Fela Kuti's grand Afrobeat party titled "Confusion". In a time of strife and struggle, when recorded music was a rarity, Kuti used his position to craft twenty-five minutes of straight up funky dance music. In a climate of economy where less than 30 minutes was all you got, Fela routinely made the most of it. As Fela's voice finally comes forward to emcee the party 14 minutes into the recording, it should already be certain this is oneof your favorite records, as well. Or at least the keyboard line that carries the track out for the final 3-4 minutes.

The keyboard played in the outro, as well as the rolling drums from the intro and outro, were sampled by Mike Love on the "I Know" remix, one of my favorites from Nigerian Gangster. And as an aside, last week's selections were sampled by Common and InI ("Water No Get Enemy") as well as Masters at Work ("Expensive Shit"). Just thought some people might like to know, and I don't think I mentioned it. I'm not sure Confusion has been sampled in any actual hip-hop tracks, but it ought to've been.

A1

Confusion

25:36

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(Note: Most of Fela's LPs are not availabe in their original condition. Because Confusion is only available from commercial outlets combined with the Gentleman LP, I will probably cover that release next week. Like last week, this upload is of the LP in its original format, which I'll continue trying to provide.)

Kuti Tuesdays: Fela Ransome Kuti & Africa 70 - Expensive Shit (1975)

One thing you'll notice each Tuesday is that Kuti generally kept his band name pretty long, and had a lot of fun changing one thing or another to reflect changes in the lineup. One constant of his Africa 70 band was Tony Allen, who I previously spotlighted with a remix LP of a more recent album. Allen handes much of the drumming here and coordinates most of the rhythm section, and really he's just fantastic. As far as Kuti goes, he produces and arranges most of the music as well as writes and sings the lyrics. The band is much bigger than either of them though, and you've really got to admire the intense and tight playing by everyone involved. This cover is a great introduction to Kuti's work, depicting at once the sadness of his countrymen and women's lives and the positive attitude with which they combat it. The A side of this LP is Fela's recounting of a hilarious story involving marijuana, a highly illegal item in Nigeria. Kuti's music led revolutions, and because of this the police were always trying to bring him in. The story goes that they planted a marijuana joint on him for an excuse to throw him in jail, but he managed to eat the joint and was forced to wait until he pooped it out so the police could have their evidence. However, he was able to get ahold of another inmate's feces and was able to use that to escape. Presumably he was pretty stoned while this was going on. The flip-side, "Water No Get Enemy", is more about country politics as it discusses the conflicts that rise from too many people and not enough water. This particular track is sampled by Mike Love for both "Roc Boys" and "Blue Magic" on the Nigerian Gangster mixtape we kicked this Fela thing off with, so you should get a nice dose of it by the end of your Kuti sessions this week.

A	Expensive Shit		13:13
B	Water No Get Enemy		11:00

See you next Tuesday with more Fela goodness!

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(Note: Many of his LPs are no longer available for purchase in their original format or tracklisting, but I'll try my best to upload the originals.)

Honest Jon's Records - Lagos Shake: A Tony Allen Chop Up (2008)

Alright, I'll be honest: part of me just wanted to post an album with sick cover art. Truth be told, some of the songs on here aren't really my style, but other tracks on here are really great so I'm sure it all comes down to personal taste, but I'm calling a dull reception for "Kilode" right now (it grows on you). Anyway, for those of you that haven't been brushing up on your African music, Tony Allen is best known as the poly rhythmic mastermind backing Fela Kuti's bands. More currently he's been working with Damon Albarn as part of the Good, The Bad & The Queen project. This album has little to do with either and instead brings together African, American and European artists from all sorts of different backgrounds, from smooth jazz to four-on-the-floor techno, to remix Tony Allen's solo LP Lagos No Shaking. Hope you enjoy. Perhaps most interesting is "Reggae Land Dub", a dub interpretation of an afrobeat song and something you don't get to hear very often. I've also read that most of these tracks don't sound much like the originals, so if that interests you be sure to follow up with the proper LP.

1	Hypnotic Brass Ensemble - Sankofa
2	Carl Craig - Kilode Remix
3	Bonde do Rolê - Awa Na Re Remix
4	Mark Ernestus - Mark's Disco Dub
5	Wareika Hill Sounds - Reggae Land Dub
6	Newham Generals - Testuya's Theme
7	Son Palenque De Colombia - Samba
8	Diplo - Fuji Ouija
9	Salah Ragab - Ole (Cairo Version)
10	Moritz von Oswald - Ole (Remix)

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