Page 40 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 13

MY AFRIKA
Art & Culture

The Big ‘Fela’ Kuti

By Robert Macharia. Kenya.

he big Fela Anikulapo ily prominent for its anti-colonial politics at a tender age.
Kuti was a Nigerian activists. His father, Israel Oludotun Growing up in Abeokuta, Fela led a
musician, producer, po- Ransome Kuti was an Anglican school choir and played piano and
Tlitical and human rights priest and a talented pianist. His percussion. However, his parents
activist and Pan-Africanist. He is mother Funmilayo Ransome Kuti had other ideas. They wanted Fela
famously attributed for coming up was a teacher, women’s rights activist to study medicine, like two of his
with Afrobeat, a musical genre in and political campaigner. With her brothers who later became doctors.
the 1960s and 1970s being a blend flair for politics, she led the women One, Olikoye Ransome-Kuti later
of Yoruba music with jazz, and of Abeokuta (women unrepresented served as Minister of Health while
West African highlife and funk. His in local government) in 1948, in a the other Beko Ransome-Kuti, be-
musical career exploded throughout successful crusade against tax on came the chairman of the Campaign
Afrika and beyond as he proudly women. Notwithstanding, she strove for Democracy, a coalition of trade
demonstrated his mastery and prow- for Nigeria’s independence and, by unions and civil rights groups that
ess as a singer, songwriter, com- the time it was achieved in 1960, she opposed Nigeria’s military rule. Lat-
poser, and his fluency in trumpet, became the country’s foremost fe- er on, Fela left for London to study
keyboard and saxophone. male nationalist and one of the few medicine, but he soon lost interest
On October 15th 1938 in Abeokuta, female chiefs. It is quite interesting and enrolled at Trinity’s College
a Yoruba town North of Lagos, Fela to see how Fela Kuti was exposed to school of performing arts. After a
was born into a middle class fam- two dynamic versions of music and time of studying European compos-

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