← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
Jad Abumrad Dives Into the World of Fela Kuti, Afrobeat Creator
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- [00:09]
Alison Stewart
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. A new podcast called Fela Kute Fear no Man is both hosted and reported by my next guest, a familiar name, Jad Abumrad. In the late 1960s, a mix of African music, Black American funk and jazz with a searing political commentary was born. It came to be known as Afrobeat and it is largely considered to be pioneered by one man, Nigerian artist and activist Fela Kuti. It reigns so large that every October in Lagos, Nigeria and all over the world, he celebrated for a week long event called Felebration. The new podcast takes the listener on a highly detailed and personal journey to learn and understand who Kuti was as a musician, friend, lover and unapologetic activist. It's on Audible now and launches on all major platforms tomorrow. Just in time for celebration which is happening this week. We're delighted to have Jad in studio to give us a preview. It is really nice to see you.
- [01:10]
Jad Abumrad
It's so cool to see you again, Alison.
- [01:12]
Alison Stewart
Listeners, are you a fellow fan? Did you ever see him in his band in concert? What are your favorite fellow memories and what has made you a fan? Give us a call, 212-433-WNYC 212-433-9692. You can call in, you can join us on air or you can text that number as well. Well, when were you first aware of Fela Kuti?
- [01:33]
Jad Abumrad
You know, Fela was always the song at a party that just sort of like got the party started. So I knew him just as like, oh, these are some nasty groups. I knew him from that level. I didn't really know his story or his impact properly until I guess three years ago when someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, hey, I'm working with the Kuti family. Would you like to do something on Fela? And I said yes. And you know, this was at a point after I had handed off Radiolab and Dolly Parton's America. And I was, I had said to myself, no more podcasts, I'm gonna do something else. And then I just got rabbit holed back into this world and cause I couldn't stop. I mean he's so interesting. So I just kept making phone calls and here we are three years later.
- [02:20]
Alison Stewart
It's almost an audio documentary series. There are 12 episodes, they're about an hour long. When did you it was going to have that size and that scope.
- [02:31]
Jad Abumrad
Well, you know, there are musicians who are musicians and then there are the other kind of musician, like Dolly Parton. Right. I did a big thing on Dolly Parton. She is not just a musician. She encapsulates 60 years of American history and culture and politics. Fela is the same way, but for an entire continent, for an entire amalgam of, you know, the African independence movement, the. The. The black American sort of civil rights move. All of it sort of flows through him and through his music. So he became a lens through which to see so many things. And I. I just. I was like, I'm just going to take a maximalist approach. We're gonna. We're gonna tell his story, but we're gonna tell the story of his bandmates, his family, the history of Nigeria as a new colony coming out from under English rule. And then that optimism kind of crashing on the shores of, like, neocolonial corruption and how he was the soundtrack for that. I just could tell all of it. And so. Sorry, throw to your show all of it. Right.
- [03:37]
Alison Stewart
Sorry.
- [03:38]
Jad Abumrad
So it just kept, you know, like everything I do, you start and you think it's gonna be three things, and then it becomes 12. That's just sort of how it goes with me.
- [03:46]
Alison Stewart
What did you know that you needed.
- [03:48]
Caller Host / Producer
To include in this project that maybe hadn't been told before? Because there's been a lot told about Fello.
- [03:54]
Jad Abumrad
Right, right. It's a good question. I mean, I think Fela is often mythologized. You know, there's the mythology of the activist rebel who almost topples a regime. And I wanted to tell that story. But like so many people, we are not just individual heroes acting independently. We are the product of all the people who came before us, all the people who would come after us. I wanted to put him in a wider context because Nigeria, West Africa. Africa. Africa. Africa in general, it's not something we think about enough. And if you. If you use him as a portal through which to see the just tectonic shifts that were happening in. At that moment, he is that much more interesting. It doesn't take away any of his agency, but you see that he just was a person who walked into the room at precisely the right moment when he was needed. And so I wanted to tell that story, the story of all the other stories that he was standing on top of, in a way.
- [05:01]
Alison Stewart
Who was on your list that you had to interview three people that you knew you had to have in this series?
- [05:07]
Jad Abumrad
Barack Obama. I was really interested to hear him talk about the power of music to generate activism and whether that's still possible, weirdly enough. IO Edebiri.
- [05:25]
Alison Stewart
Sure.
- [05:26]
Jad Abumrad
From the Bear. I just think she's amazing. And she was on record as saying she was obsessed with Fila, and I was like, oh, I really want to know what she hears in him. That turns out to be fascinating. Who else? I guess, you know, it's funny, I could say celebrities, but the people who increasingly became the center of the project. Like, for example, the first episode is just a rhythm pianist named Dele Shashimi. All the way on the side of the stage.
- [05:55]
Alison Stewart
Yeah, it doesn't even start with Fela.
- [05:56]
Jad Abumrad
It doesn't start with Fela, but I think you hear and feel his impact by looking at the people on the margins of the stage, the people who are in the audience. Fela is hard to know, but he's kind of like the energy source that lights up a light bulb. You can't see the energy until you see the light. So it felt important to me to look at those people who were illuminated by him, if that makes sense.
- [06:20]
Alison Stewart
Yeah. Tell me about Della. He's predominant in the first episode of your podcast. How did you track him down? Why did you decide to have that person open the series?
- [06:31]
Jad Abumrad
You know, our process was just to find anybody who knew him, anybody who played with him, to just get a kind of a kaleidoscopic look at this guy. Dele was somebody who had been recommended to us from. I forget who, but we just. We walked into the interview cold, and then he told us a story that I. It's literally like one of those. I've been doing interviews a long time. You know, it's one of the interviews I'll never forget in my life. I mean, he told us a story that was so heartbreaking and inspiring. Devastating. I mean, I don't know what adjective to layer. It was just one of those. Those interviews. And his interview was the moment where I got it. Like, you know, every series you're looking for, like, the keystone, the moment that sort of, oh, this is what we're doing. This is what it's about, what he experienced. I mean, he saw pretty much the worst thing a human can see, and then the music saved him in a way that was just so shocking to me. And I thought, oh, this is a. This is a series about the power of art. This is a series about the power of music. And that became, like, the focus at that point. So we got lucky is the short answer, you know, but you work hard enough, the luck happens, you know?
- [07:47]
Alison Stewart
I'm speaking with Jad Abumrad, host of the new podcast Felikuti Fear. No, man. An in depth Examination of his life, activism and musical legacy of the father of Afrobeat. If you'd like to call or join the conversation. Are you a fellow fan? Did you ever see him or his band in concert? Our number is 212-433-WNYC 21243. I have a text here that says I was visiting Lagos the day fella died. I went to an all night jazz night that it was partially open mic. People sang one fella song after the other. It was a monumental event.
- [08:21]
Jad Abumrad
Yes. Yeah. And I love whoever sent that text. I love you. I mean we have a. One of our episodes in the series really looks very closely at the events of that day. You know, it was, you know, there are, there are, there are, there are celebrations when a person dies and then there are people's funerals where like the entire country comes together in a way that's like kind of profound. It was one of those, it was one of those, that moment was just mythic and we go into sort of very specific detail about it.
- [08:57]
Caller Host / Producer
We'll have more with Jad Abumrad after a quick break. This is all of it.
- [09:10]
Alison Stewart
You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest in studio is Jad Abumrad. He's the host of a new podcast, Felikuti Fear. No, man. Let's talk to Annie from Norwalk, Connecticut. Hi Annie, thanks for making the time to call all of it.
- [09:28]
Annie from Norwalk
Yes, hi, I'm calling from Norwalk, Connecticut. I saw fellow play in New York City in the late 80s in a small theater, a Broadway theater. And I was a very active human rights activist with Amnesty International as a volunteer. And I'm not sure. I just know that somehow I got tickets and it was really life changing in terms of a genre of music. And then I just dove into his music and other music from Nigeria and he's still on my playlist 30 something years later.
- [10:02]
Alison Stewart
Love the story. Thank you so much.
- [10:04]
Jad Abumrad
I'm so jealous that Annie, that you got to see him at that moment. That's amazing.
- [10:10]
Alison Stewart
How was it to find audio of him talking Fellocouti?
- [10:14]
Jad Abumrad
You know, this is one of the real challenges of the series is that he didn't leave a lot behind in terms of tape. I mean, you will find tape of him very, very high on the sofa in his undies and you can't make heads or tails of what he's saying. He didn't leave a lot of tape where he explains himself, where he explains his philosophy, like what he's thinking you really have to sort of weed through the people around him and through his actions. But there are times where, I don't know, I mean, Alison, there are times where he expresses a level of courage that almost seems unreal. There's one particular bit of tape I'm thinking of where he. There's just been a government raid. This is probably 1979, if I'm guessing. His house has burned down. You know, many, many people were beaten. I mean, terrible things happened on that day. He is just talking to the television camera, showing him all the wounds and basically saying, I'm never going to back down, you know, and there's. I think about that, I think about times when he, he releases a song called zombie in 1976, which basically calls the military zombies, like mindless drones. And he sings it at the shrine and there are soldiers in the audience, like, and, and, and it is banned from the radio and he is raided as a result. It's almost like imagining a band going on the lawn of the, of the White House and singing to Trump as the National Guard is approaching. And you know you're going to get beaten and you still do it. There are all of these instances where you just see him basically acting with that kind of courage. And it's really, it's a bit crazy, but it's also, it just feels like the story I need to hear right now. Maybe we all need to hear.
- [12:04]
Alison Stewart
Yeah. And it was sort of interesting to find out. You know, he was from like a.
- [12:08]
Caller Host / Producer
Fairly middle class family. His parents sent him to London to go to medical school and he signed up for music school instead.
- [12:15]
Alison Stewart
And after this project, was that cheeky of him? Was that a cheeky attempt or was.
- [12:21]
Caller Host / Producer
This like truly a passion he had for music?
- [12:24]
Jad Abumrad
You know, I think he, you know, if you go back to the beginning, he was a sort of good colonial boy in scare quotes. His parents were part of the structure of the colonial enterprise in Abeokuta, Nigeria. They were pretty well off. He was trained to sing in the choir. He went to London to play. I think he went to London to study medicine and then snuck into jazz clubs and basically changed his major to music. I think at that point though, he very much had this idea that Europe is great back home in Nigeria, there's nothing worth celebrating there. He very much had that idea that I need to get out. He comes to America and he meets a woman named Sandra Isidore, who at that point had become quite radicalized, had joined the Black Panther Party. She starts handing him books like Autobiography of Malcolm X she starts telling him about the Civil Rights movement, about the history of lynchings and race in America. She really sort of radicalizes him. You could say he found Africa in America, actually. And that was the moment he decided to go back and invent what he called a truly African form of music. So it's interesting to think about, like what about how identity works. What does it mean to be authentically of a place when you discover that place elsewhere?
- [13:57]
Caller Host / Producer
Absolutely. Let's talk to Toby from Huntington Station, Long Island. Hi, Toby, thank you for making the time to call. All of it.
- [14:04]
Alison Stewart
You're on the air.
- [14:06]
South African Musician
Okay, thanks so much. I'm a South African born musician living in Huntington Station and I'm a huge fan of Fela and his music. His music has influenced my musical compositions and outlook greatly. Growing up in apartheid South Africa, the great South African musicians who sang about freedom and togetherness were extremely influential in my musical journey. So when I arrived in America at the end of the 80s and started to listen to the music of Fela and his offspring, notably his son, soon I. I was drawn into his breathtaking rhythms and call and response melodies and of course, his extremely meaningful lyrics. I'm also a huge fan of the Brooklyn based, I guess you call him, fellow tribute band Anki Balas, which whom I love a lot, I've seen him a lot. And especially his son Sierra, who is just a dynamic performer. So, yes, I'm very, very connected to Fela's music and his great way of delivering fantastic songs.
- [15:12]
Caller Host / Producer
Thank you so much for calling in. So Fela returns to Nigeria after meeting Sandra with this sort of new political outlook. And he sort of establishes afrobeat. Not Afrobeats, like not Burn a Boy, not what we think of now. What makes Afrobeat Afrobeat?
- [15:31]
Jad Abumrad
That is such a good question, Alison, because it's really hard to answer. It is a kind of blend. The way I think of it is we all sort of land on this planet and we are the product of all the things that fill us up as a child. And it doesn't make sense until it does. And for him, I think 1971, he releases a record called Jean Koku, which is one of the most, still maybe my top favorite fella tune. And there's something about that record where it's like you hear him taking in jazz, okay? You hear like he had been in a, quote, high life band, which is a kind of like big band dance music that was sort of hybrid colonial, native African genre. He had taken the horns from High Life, but transpose them into A modal jazz. So it just feels different. He had taken James Brown rhythms and funk and chicken scratch guitar and married it with that. He'd taken Yoruba drumming, which is a very sort of old, ancient form of rhythm. Put it together, and his vocal style shifted to something a little bit more guttural and raw and somehow, in a way that's hard to articulate, all those things locked. They just held hands, and suddenly it was like a new genre. And you can hear all the pieces, but together they add up to something that's way greater than the sum of their parts. And that became Afrobeat. Now, Afrobeats, you're right to mention, was a very different thing. But it was named to sort of honor him, you know, I mean, those musicians, like Burna Boy. Burna Boy will tell you, like, fella is his hero. And so I think they. They. They wanted to sort of like establish Fela as their lineage.
- [17:22]
Alison Stewart
Let's talk to Zeke, who's calling in from Park Slope. Hi, Zeke, you're on the air.
- [17:27]
Zeke from Park Slope
Hi, Alison, Always a pleasure. So I love you. I love what you're saying. I'll tell you why. So let me begin with. So here I am, a New York kid in the 70s and so forth, loving Michael Jackson and so forth, and all of a sudden, this sound comes from this Somakusa.
- [17:42]
Alison Stewart
And.
- [17:42]
Zeke from Park Slope
And then we're hearing this guy called Fel Al Kuti. And over here, world music. Okay. Whoa. All of a sudden, music just expanded. And then we call Afrobeat. But the first was world music. Juju music.
- [17:56]
Ira Flatow
Right?
- [17:56]
Jad Abumrad
Yeah.
- [17:57]
Zeke from Park Slope
Then I had the pleasure of being in Boston. And if you've been to Boston, there's the Commons. And there he was with his band. Man, it's a 12, 14 people band. Out of control, out of control. You could never stop dancing once you heard that music. Then I love this man so much, I had to go look at his play. And. Thank you. You're talking about his biography. Very well. And then I listened to his son and his grandson.
- [18:25]
Ira Flatow
Okay.
- [18:25]
Zeke from Park Slope
And to this day, I don't. You know, he is the Duke, Ellen, in African music.
- [18:34]
Alison Stewart
Thank you so much. I'm gonna cut you off there, Zeke. Thank you so much for calling in.
- [18:37]
Jad Abumrad
His exuberance was amazing.
- [18:39]
Alison Stewart
Amazing. I did want to get this in before we finish out the hour. You know, there's an exhibit celebrating his work in Lagos, and they interviewed one of his friends, and he said, fella is revered abroad like a giant, like a saint. But back home, even the government, they don't see the Essence of his value. What is his value?
- [18:58]
Jad Abumrad
You know, I think. Oh, God, that's a good question. What is his value? His value is like layered, right? I mean, his value is like, you put it on, you just dance. As Zeke was saying. It's just, it just. It moves you. But I think his value is also that he represents why music matters, why art matters. I mean, in this moment where it really is just a soundtrack to distract us from the chaos, you look, you. You look around and it's just madness in all directions. And you think, what can you do? Here was a guy who used music as a weapon. Like he. That's what he called it. This is my weapon to use as a battering ram against the state. And to think that that is still possible, that we could still use music to not just dance to, but to move to and to become a movement to. For me, that's. I think, you know, you have all of these musicians who love him, and I think what they really love in him is that commitment to using music to change the world.
- [20:00]
Alison Stewart
And if someone wanted to. Has been listening to this and wants to listen to three songs that Felikuti sang, what would you suggest?
- [20:07]
Jad Abumrad
Oh, good question. I am partial to the early fella, so I'm going to give you three from his early catalog, Junkoku. I think he's. It's just a great song. It's a great song. Ruffle, ruffle fight. There's a 20 second passage where the, where the. All the beat comes in. I don't think there is a better 22nd passage of music anywhere. And then I would, you know, I love a song like Kalokura Show. It's a little bit of a deep cut, but that's. That's a song that he made after he was raided by the government and he basically almost issued a news report about the raid in song form.
- [20:47]
Caller Host / Producer
You've been listening to Jad Adam Abumrad.
- [20:49]
Alison Stewart
You can listen to his new podcast, Felikuti Fear.
- [20:52]
Caller Host / Producer
No man. Thank you for sharing and previewing your podcast with us. Congratulations on it, by the way.
- [20:57]
Jad Abumrad
Thank you, Alison. You're amazing. Thank you for having me on.
- [20:59]
Caller Host / Producer
There's more. All of it on the way.
- [21:04]
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- [21:33]
Ira Flatow
This is Ira Flato, host of Science Friday. For over 30 years, the science Friday team has been reporting high quality science and technology news, making science fun for curious people by covering everything from the outer reaches of space to the rapidly changing world of AI to the tiniest microbes in our bodies. Audiences trust our show because they know we're driven by a mission to inform and serve listeners first and foremost with important news they won't get anywhere else. And our sponsors benefit from that halo effect. For more information on becoming a sponsor, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.