Enter the Shrine, from Fela Kuti: Fear No Man

Summary

DISGRACELAND – Fela Kuti: Fear No Man

Chapter 3: Enter the Shrine

Podcast by Double Elvis Productions
Date: December 22, 2025
Host: Jad Abumrad
Special Guests: Michael Veal, John Darton, Lisa Lindsay, and more

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Overview

In this immersive episode, “Enter the Shrine,” Jad Abumrad explores the electrifying, transformative space that was Fela Kuti’s legendary club—the Shrine—in Lagos, Nigeria. More than just a live music venue, the Shrine functioned as a vital hub for resistance, counterculture, and community, providing sanctuary and inspiration amid the oppression of military dictatorship. The episode delves into what made the Shrine such a radical, mythic locale, blends first-hand accounts by musicians, scholars, and journalists, and unpacks how Fela’s music could galvanize political consciousness, transfix bodies, and hypnotize minds.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Importance of Place in a Movement

• The Shrine as an Oasis of Freedom
  • The episode opens by framing the Shrine as an "oasis of freedom amidst a brutal dictatorship" (00:27).
  • Jad Abumrad emphasizes that every movement needs a physical space for people to feel its promise “right here, right now in the present” (01:28).
• Location & Symbolism
  • Fela established the Shrine in Mushin, a densely populated, working-class area on Lagos’ mainland—deliberately away from elite islands, to be with, and for, “the people, the sufferheads as he called them” (05:21).

2. First-Hand Accounts: Arriving at the Shrine

• Michael Veal’s Vivid Memory
  • Michael Veal, Yale professor and Fela biographer, recounts his first visit:

    “It was very, very funky... it’s total darkness. But thousands of these little Sterno lamps illuminating the place because the power went out all the time in Lagos... It’s like almost like Woodstock of a kind...” (02:00–03:01).

• Atmosphere and Contrast
  • Outside: soldiers, fear, curfews, and public executions; inside: an alternate reality of music, radical freedom, and marijuana smoke, where "giant joints" abounded (07:39–09:12).
  • Lisa Lindsay, historian, describes “joints the size of police megaphones,” further highlighting the extraordinary contrast between repression outside and liberation within (08:44).

3. Fela’s Mythic Persona & Performance

• Pregame Rituals and Showmanship
  • John Darton, NYT journalist, reads from his 1970s article:

    “He prepares for it laboriously from a jar... nicknamed Fella gold, distilled extract of marijuana... slips into skin tight sequined pants... Six bodyguards draw near. ‘Let’s go,’ Fela says. And the entourage moves outside where there is a crowd of several hundred people... A chant—Fela, Fela—rumbles out of the dark.” (10:03–11:06)

  • The arrival: sometimes riding a donkey, always a spectacle (11:14).
• The Physical Setting
  • 500-person open-air club, with dancers in cages (Studio 54-style), an altar with images of his mother, Malcolm X, Kwame Nkrumah (11:42).

4. The Shrine Experience: Hypnotic Music & Transcendence

• Trance and Transformation
  • The musicians and guests explain the music as hypnotic, enveloping, almost psychedelic:

    “The music was like inside of me, it was all around... being hypnotized, like you’re all inside the music.” – Jad Abumrad (01:13, revisited at 13:20)

  • Veal describes it as a “swirl,” a “circle,” a cyclonic force that builds intensity over time:

    “Fela starts his music to enchant... The power of the musical ostinato. It’s part of that enchanting strategy. You’ve been captured.” (14:51)

• Extended Grooves and Message
  • Songs would extend for 30–40 minutes, building tension until Fela’s voice suddenly enters, breaking the spell with sharp, politically charged lyrics (17:53–18:08).

    “Why would you play a song for 30 minutes or 40 minutes unless you really have something to say? Get deeper...” (16:48)

• Political Awakening and Shock
  • Listeners and guests describe a “light bulb” effect, with music opening their minds to truths about Nigeria, corruption, and themselves (19:30–20:08).

5. Music as Political Weapon

• Fela in His Own Words
  • 1988 interview clip:

    “My music, music is like an attraction to inform people. It’s the information side of the music that’s important... It’s a weapon.” (25:46–26:32)

• Cycles of Power and Resistance
  • Fela viewed time and struggle as cyclical (“circle, circle, circle...”), reflected both in his music and in Nigerian history (26:40).

6. The Musical Structure as Rebellion

• Ostinato & Trance State
  • Jad and Michael Veal explain how the relentless repeating patterns (ostinato, meaning “stubborn” in Italian) refuse familiar song progression, instead:

    “...layers get added, instrument by instrument, and at some point… you stop wanting it to change. This is phase two... This groove is a whole world. This is the trance state.” (23:07–24:13)

• From Trance to Message
  • The hypnotic structure primes listeners for deep focus, so when Fela does sing about injustice, UN hypocrisy, or corruption, the message lands powerfully:

    “You see ideas in the air, floating from the stage like thought balloons and then sinking into somebody’s skull.” – John Darton (19:12, also 24:59)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Political Impact:

  “Brothers and sisters, the secret of life… is to have no fear.”—Michael Veal, opening invocation (01:13)

• On Fela’s Protective Aura:

  “Fela is like life after death. Evergreen.” – Food seller outside the Shrine (07:02)
  “Do you feel like Fela still protects this street, this place?” —Jad
  “Yes, yeah, yes, exactly.” —Food seller (07:11)

• On Radical Contrast:

  “It was just this massive cloud up at the top of the thing... People dancing and people stoned out of their minds. And it was such a contrast to how scared people were outside the shrine.” – Jad (09:09–09:12)

• On the Effect of Fela’s Lyrics:

  “Whether you like or you know like after you hear this little talk... If you hunt, you go die... When his voice came in, I was like, what the hell? There are words too.” – Michael Veal (18:08) “You could see ideas... floating from the stage like thought balloons and then sinking into somebody’s skull.” – John Darton (19:12)

• On Corruption and Awakening:

  “When I was growing up in Nigeria, we would hear about corruption… and we would open our mouths in shock... Over time, we started hearing about millions... now... trillions... over time has had a numbing effect. That’s long gone.” – Moses Uchunu (21:17)

• On Structure and Cycles:

  “Ostinato in Italian… means basically stubborn. The loops stubbornly repeat… at first, it’s grounding... then you want some change... but the music doesn’t give us that... at some point... you stop wanting it to change. This is phase two.” – Jad (23:07)

• On Music as Weapon:

  “It’s a weapon to say... so I can talk when I have the chance to. I consider music to be effective... to inform people.” – Fela Kuti (26:09)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:28] – Importance of physical spaces (Jad)
• [02:00–03:01] – Michael Veal’s first-hand account of the Shrine’s atmosphere
• [05:21] – Fela’s choice to locate the Shrine in Mushin
• [08:44] – Lisa Lindsay on the social rebellion inside the Shrine
• [10:03–11:06] – John Darton's journalistic description of Fela’s pre-show ritual
• [13:20–14:51] – The hypnotic, transformative effect of the music
• [17:53–18:08] – Sudden entry of Fela’s singing and political lyricism
• [19:12] – John Darton’s observation on the effect of Fela’s words
• [21:17] – Moses Uchunu on corruption and Fela’s awakening effect
• [23:07–24:13] – Structure of Fela’s music and the path to trance
• [25:46–26:32] – Fela on music as a weapon for social change

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Conclusion & Episode Tone

With narration that is equal parts reverent, energetic, and immersive, the episode embodies the spirit of Fela himself—unapologetically radical, deeply human, and keenly aware of the stakes of art and activism. Through storytelling, well-placed music, and a mosaic of voices, listeners are drawn into a vanished world that still reverberates: the Shrine as the heart of Afrobeat, resistance, euphoria, and illumination.

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For those who haven’t listened:
This episode offers not just a crash course in Fela Kuti’s music and the lifeblood of Lagos in the ’70s/’80s, but also a universal meditation on how art can spark resistance, transformation, and even collective awakening—one trance-inducing groove at a time.

Transcript

[John Darton]

Foreign.

[Jad Abumrad]

Elvis.

[Michael Veal]

So we couldn't get enough of the podcast. Fela Kuti Fear no Man.

[Jad Abumrad]

So to celebrate the show's finale, we're sharing another episode.

[Michael Veal]

As you might remember, Fela Kuti Fear.

[Jad Abumrad]

No Man is Jad Abumrad's true tale.

[Michael Veal]

Of one of the great political awakenings in music.

[Jad Abumrad]

In this episode we hear about Fela's club, the Shrine.

[Michael Veal]

It was an oasis of freedom amidst a brutal dictatorship.

[Jad Abumrad]

Once inside and on the dance floor, the music intoxicated, enraptured and ultimately inspired resistance.

[Michael Veal]

You can binge the entire series now.

[Jad Abumrad]

Atisgraceland. My experience in being in the shrine was like. The music was like inside of me was all around. It was just like being hypnotized. Like you're all inside the music.

[Michael Veal]

Brothers and sisters, the secret of life.

[Jad Abumrad]

Is to have no fear.

[Michael Veal]

We all have to understand that.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Fela KUTI Fear no man. I'm Jad Abumrad. Chapter 3 Enter the Shrine One of the ingredients of a movement, necessary ingredients, is to have a place where you can experience the promise of that movement right here, right now in the present. Can you tell, can you tell us about your first visit to the shrine?

[Michael Veal]

Yes, of course.

[Jad Abumrad]

What do you remember about them?

[Michael Veal]

It was very, very funky.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Michael Veal, musician, professor of music at Yale. He's also one of our advisors on the project.

[Michael Veal]

To hear that music in New York is one thing. You know, you listen to that music in New York, you're like, oh yeah, whatever. Look, the first night I was in Lagos, you know, as you're walking up the Shrine, you hear that, then you get closer, you start. So you started him. I remember that very clearly. And it was in the. It was at night and there was no power. Every blackout, it's like going to Times Square. But there are people all in the street, like thousands and thousands of people. Jam packed mob of people. It's total darkness. But thousands of these little Sterno lamps illuminating the place because the power went out all the time in Lagos. But there are thousands of these Sternos. So you imagine the scene, it's like almost like Woodstock of a kind of thing. You know what I mean? Yeah.

[John Darton]

Yeah.

[Michael Veal]

To hear that music in New York is one thing. You're like, oh yeah, whatever. But then if you ever get in a plane and go to Lagos, Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to. They open a hatch and it goes with the humidity and the heat. The minute they open the hatch, it's like blam. And then you walk out of the plane and you Gotta go down the steps. And you're like, oh, now I get it.

[Jad Abumrad]

Welcome to Nigeria.

[Michael Veal]

That's the way reality feels in this setting. You know what I'm saying?

[Jad Abumrad]

That interview with Michael Veal was one of the many reasons why when we finally got to lagos after a 13 hour flight, the top item on our agenda was to go to the shrine. Let me fill in a few gaps. 1969, after the whole Sandra Isadore experience in LA, Fela comes back to Nigeria, radicalized, steps off the plane and takes the country by storm. He becomes the massive star that we know him to be. And then between 1973 and 1979, he releases this fire hose. Of music. Something like, by my count, 27 records in six years. Ish. One hit after another after another. Now, the Shrine. During that time, early on, he sets up a club that he calls the Shrine. And it's important to understand where Lagos. Lagos city, the most populous city in Africa. Lagos is on the coast, the Atlantic Ocean. And it consists of a giant landmass and mainland that curves around this bay. And in the bay are two major islands that connect back to the mainland with bridges on the islands. This is the sound you hear. Peacocks, golf. It's very lush, very beautiful on the mainland. Very different sound. You will find places on the mainland where the sheer density of people is just breathtaking. For example, this audio that you're hearing is from a market that we visited in a neighborhood called Mushin, A poor working class neighborhood where a million people are packed into seven square miles. In this neighborhood, not the island. This spot is where he decided to put the shrine. To say, basically, I am the voice of the people, the sufferheads, as he called them. When we visited the shrine at night, it was more or less as Michael Veale described it.

[Michael Veal]

People all in the street, like jam packed mob with people.

[Jad Abumrad]

He was there in 92. We were there 2024. And the shrine has closed a few times and reopened and moved around a bit. But it was kind of the same. It was dark. You had about 50 food cellars lining the block. This very long block in front of the shrine. People smoked weed openly, which in Nigeria can carry a heavy prison sentence. Our fixer in Lagos told us that even now, 28 years after Fellah died, this is the one place where that can happen. One of the sellers that was there explained it this way.

[Michael Veal]

Fela is like life after death. Evergreen.

[Jad Abumrad]

Do you feel like Fela still protects this street, this place?

[Michael Veal]

Yes, yeah, yes, exactly.

[Jad Abumrad]

His sense was the ghost of Fellah is still there protecting this one block. And as he said that, he nodded towards the end of the block where there were policemen waiting, standing almost like on the other side of an invisible line. You've done your research. You know that the, the shrine and also Fela's compound, the Kalakuda Republic, he had kind of declared independent of Nigeria. That's Lisa Lindsay, a professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She specializes in the history of West Africa. And she brings up an important point, is that in 1970, when Fellah got back to Nigeria, he declared his club the Shrine and also his house nearby, which he called the Kalakuta Republic. He declared them a sovereign nation within Nigeria, Sort of like the Vatican is to Italy, that he was a country unto himself. Lisa Lindsay visited the shrine in the early 90s. It was just all this craziness that we saw. Well, okay, so outside there's a dictatorship that was shooting people at that time. And there are videos of this on YouTube. The government would hold public executions of criminals and dissidents on the beach. There were soldiers in the streets. It wasn't safe to be out at night. You go in. And it's just this alternate universe. Describe what it looks like. It was like a warehouse, sort of everybody smoking, like a lot of weed smoking. Giant, giant joints. Joints the size of police megaphones.

[Michael Veal]

Keep in mind, at that time, people were getting thrown in jail for 10 years for a half smoke joint.

[Jad Abumrad]

It was just this massive cloud up at the top of the thing.

[Michael Veal]

It's hot, it's humid. There are a lot of people in.

[Jad Abumrad]

There, people dancing and people stoned out of their minds. And it was such a contrast to how scared people were outside of the shrine.

[John Darton]

The shrine was not far from his house, a couple of blocks.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's John Darton, Pulitzer prize winning journalist who wrote for the New York Times. Worked as a foreign correspondent based in lagos in the mid-70s. Wrote many, many articles about Fela, including this one where he watched Fela get ready right before he performed at the shrine. Would you mind reading this? This is you, you reading you. Because we, Ruby and I have been trying to find as vivid descriptions as we can of the atmosphere. And this is actually one of the more vivid that we've ever read.

[John Darton]

New York Times.

[Jad Abumrad]

That voice is Nina Darton, John's wife, also a longtime journalist.

[John Darton]

Fella's pregame ritual. The show begins at 1am Inside the nearby Calcutta Republic. Fela prepares for it laboriously from a jar. He spoons up liberal doses. Glitter, gooey substance nicknamed Fella gold distilled extract of marijuana. Full length mirrors are brought before him and held by two young boys. He slowly slips into skin tight sequined pants and a white shirt open to the waist, arranging his strings of beads as if he were smoothing a necktie. Six bodyguards draw near. Let's go. Fella says. And the entourage moves outside where there is a crowd of several hundred people. Some have been waiting for hours, clinging to the barbed wire to catch a glimpse of him. A chant. Fela Fela rumbles out of the dark.

[Jad Abumrad]

That is really good. It is really good.

[John Darton]

And as he walked, he sat on a donkey. Well, that was the second death he's.

[Jad Abumrad]

Got on a donkey. What? Okay, wait. Sorry.

[John Darton]

As he walked, he was a showman. Drivers would get out and raise a fist and yell, fella. Fella. Anyway, then he starts playing and I have never seen, I think, a performer quite as dynamic as that. He was absolutely incredible.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Fela Kuti. Fear no Man. Before we go back into the shrine, well, first let me give you a picture. It is a open air club, fits about 500 people. There's a tin roof over the stage, but no roof over the dance floor. And to either side of the stage are four studio 54ish cages where dancers dance. Also to one side there is an altar where Fellah had a picture of his mother, a picture of Malcolm X and a picture of Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana. But I'll be honest, what's most interesting to me is not so much the shrine itself. I mean, it was a club, but rather what happened to people when they went inside of it. Because do you know how people talk about psilocybin now? Right? Like we all have one of those friends who did some mushrooms and it changed their life and they can't stop talking about it. And there's a way to explain those experiences. You can say neurochemistry, right? There's something about these drugs. They rewire your brain. Fine. We ran into so many people who described listening to Fellah's music at the shrine in the same way that it had the same effect on them, which is a little harder to explain, though I will try in a moment. But first let's re enter the shrine from their perspective. And as you're listening, see if you can let yourself notice. What are you paying attention to? How does that change over time? 1:00am Fela arrives on his donkey, takes the stage with 35 other musicians and he begins a riff that will last most of the night. My experience in being in the shrine was like. The music was like inside of me. It was all around. It was just like, you know, being hypnotized. Like you're all inside the music. Kind of hypnotic dancing.

[Michael Veal]

React to music, dancing. In listening. In listening. I remember being lost in music.

[Jad Abumrad]

All the people are smoking around me and we are in the mist.

[Michael Veal]

So you're in a different world. This idea of spiral, spiral, spiral and circle. It's another way to. To deal with time for a. I always describe it as a swirl. You know, when. When you have a cyclo, it starts off as this little thing that builds up. And it builds up. The more you allow it to circulate, it just starts to get bigger, get bigger, get bigger, get bigger Circle. Get big, get bigger, get bigger cycle. Get bigger, get bigger, get bigger, get bigger. Fella starts his music to enchant this reflection. Repetitive pattern. The power of the musical ostenato. It's part of that enchanting strategy. You've been captured.

[Jad Abumrad]

I thought, this is really an amazing new form of music.

[Michael Veal]

It was almost like a field of sound that sits there for a long.

[Jad Abumrad]

Time and you explore it. You kind of enter it and live in it. This is a place, this isn't a song.

[John Darton]

And meanwhile, the rhythm section's keeping going, going, going, going, going, going, going.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is a place. And when you start listening to it, you are entering into that place. Like the music was like inside of me was all around and just like, you know, being hypnotized by.

[Michael Veal]

Kind of hypnotic. And so with Fela, you could tell that there was a different kind of intention behind this paradigm of groove. The music is so nasty. You have to dance. But that's just the ground level. Because why would you play a song for 30 minutes or 40 minutes unless you really have something to say? Get deeper, unless you really know something about it.

[John Darton]

Going rhythm sections going.

[Michael Veal]

Unless you really have something.

[Jad Abumrad]

And then singing.

[John Darton]

Suddenly, after half an hour, 40 minutes, He starts singing.

[Michael Veal]

Whether you like or you know like after you hear this little talk. Whether you like or you know, like after you hear this talk. If you like it good, if you know like you hungry. If you like it good. If you know life, you hunt. If you hunt, you go die. You go die for nothing. We go carry your body. Go police station, you die wrongfully. When his voice came in, I was like, what the hell? There are words too. After one year, he sighted. Hold up. What is this?

[John Darton]

He sings in a gravelly, low pitched voice and sings about things that no one else ever even mentioned. Any newspaper, any columnist.

[Michael Veal]

He talks about the United nations, he talks about Thatcher, he talks about Reagan. It's really everything. It's like a history lesson.

[John Darton]

You see it sinking in. You could see ideas in the air floating from the stage like thought balloons and then sinking into somebody's skull.

[Jad Abumrad]

I just felt, where has my mind.

[Michael Veal]

Been, you know, all.

[Jad Abumrad]

All my life?

[Michael Veal]

Complete surprise. Like, I was immediately captivated. Why did we not know this? Why aren't we thinking about this stuff? When Fela singing to a microphone, I saw the light.

[Jad Abumrad]

I was just like, you know, like.

[Michael Veal]

He sucks you in and then he has that light bulb effect on you. You come into yourself and, you know, it's a moment of introspection, too, because you realize that you haven't been as attuned as you probably should have.

[Jad Abumrad]

All the stuff he was singing was just new to me, you know, I.

[Michael Veal]

Was just learning so much about Nigerian history through Fela that I had not learned in school.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Felikuti Fear no, man. Before we go on, the voices you just heard before the break, in addition to Michael Veal and John Darton were Stephanie Shonakan and Bode Omojola, both professors of ethnomusicology at the University of Maryland and Mount Holyoke, respectively. Afrobeat musicians Dele Shoshimi and Duro Ikujenyo, activist, filmmaker, musician Saul Williams, musician and producer Brian Eno, artist Lemmy Gariaku, photographer Marilyn Nance, designer Lorraine Animosin, and our advisor, Moses Uchunu, who's a professor of history and my colleague at Vanderbilt University. He was one of the last voices you heard? And I asked him, you said the music made you feel like you needed to tune into things you hadn't been tuning into. Like what?

[Michael Veal]

You know, when I was growing up in Nigeria, you know, we would hear about corruption, about thousands of naira being embezzled by some politician or government official. And we would open our mouths in shock because our brains couldn't compute how one person would make off with thousands of naira. How would the person carry this money? What would they put it in? In some boxes, in some cars, you know, physically, how would they move this money? You know, we just couldn't fathom it. And then over time, we started hearing about millions, not thousands anymore, then billions. And now, as we speak, the corruption numbers have entered the trillions that over time has had a numbing effect, a dulling effect. The shock value, the kind of shock that I felt as a child growing up in Nigeria, the moral outrage that I felt that's gone. That's long gone.

[Jad Abumrad]

And that is what would come back when you heard his songs, right?

[Michael Veal]

Exactly.

[Jad Abumrad]

Moses said that Fellah's music would remind him of the insanity that he had been sane, washed into believing was normal. And I think that there's something really interesting about how the music can move him to that thought. Music is all about structure, right? Structuring the relationship between notes and chords and melodies. But here you have structure on a. On an entirely different level, almost like a phenomenological structure. For the first 15 minutes, it's just loops. Ostinato is going round and round.

[Michael Veal]

The power of the musical ostinato.

[Jad Abumrad]

Ostinato in Italian, by the way, means basically stubborn. The loops stubbornly repeat. And at first it's not so bad. It's kind of grounding, actually. But then the natural response is then to want some change. Like, can we go to the next section now, please, please? No. This is what the Buddhists call our monkey mind. Our monkey mind wants distraction. It wants anything to keep us from having to live with our own thoughts. But the music doesn't give us that. It doesn't change. It only builds. Layers get added piece by piece, instrument by instrument. And at some point, a few minutes in, you arrive at this point, mysterious moment where you stop wanting it to change. This is phase two. Now that part of you that wants novelty starts to notice things like, whoa, listen to all the interlocking parts of this groove.

[John Darton]

Whoa.

[Michael Veal]

The Austin Mars, they're like machine gears. They don't grind. The gears are timed in between each other, so they just subtly fit into the little gaps and holes, like 30.

[Jad Abumrad]

The way that the conga plays off the shaker call in response. The way that the three guitar lines spin around endlessly like gears in a higher level clock. My God, this groove is a whole world. This is the trance state. Usually when we talk about trance, we mean a kind of dulling of our senses. But actually it's the opposite. It's a state of hyper focus. You are noticing things. You're hearing things you've never heard before because your neurons are rewired. You are open. And it is at this very moment that Fela begins to sing.

[Michael Veal]

I was like, what the hell? There are words too.

[Jad Abumrad]

In comes his voice, booming like the voice of God. This is phase three. And because you are open, you really hear what he is saying.

[John Darton]

You see it sinking in. You could see ideas in the air, floating from the stage like thought balloons and then sinking into somebody's skull.

[Jad Abumrad]

And in that way, as the final piece of this progression. He gives you a new conception of what your life can be. I saw the light that you can now dance to.

[Michael Veal]

My music, my main. My main preoccupation right now. Music is a small part of it.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is a clip from an interview fela gave in 1988 where he describes his musical form almost as this vehicle designed to move people step by step by step so that they can hear what he has to say.

[Michael Veal]

Is your music kind of a tool? It's a weapon. It's a weapon to say, so I can talk when I have the chance to. I consider music to be effective, like a weapon to inform people. My music, music is like an attraction to inform people. It is the information side of the music that is important.

[Jad Abumrad]

In that same interview, he suggests that there's something else going on here too that has to do with time itself.

[Michael Veal]

Circle, circle, circle. If anybody tells me 20 years is a long time, I would tell him no. Time is meaningless unless you want to understand what time is about. There is time for everything.

[Jad Abumrad]

Coming up, that idea of cycles is going to become not just about the music, but so much more cycles of history, of violence, of resistance. We're going to follow all of the interlocking ostinatos of fellas groove across time and space into the deep past to an incredible story of a rebellion that deposed a king that created a sound that continues to echo to this day on the streets of Lagos. In the world that's. This has been a Higher Ground and Audible original. Produced by Audible, Higher Ground Audio, Western Sound and Talkhouse. The series was created and executive produced by me, Chad Abumrad, Ben Adair and Ian Wheeler. Written and hosted by yours truly, Higher Ground executive producers were Nick White, Mukta Mohan and Dan Fearman. Jen 11 was creative executive and Corinne Gilliard Fisher was executive producer. Executive producers for Audible were Anne Hepperman, Glenn Pogue and Nick d'. Angelo. Our senior producer was Gofan Utubwele. Ruby Herron Walsh was lead producer and researcher. Our producers were Fefe Odudu and Oluakemi Aledi Osui. Ben Adair was our editor with editing help, Carla Murthy. Consulting producers were Bolu Babalola, Dotun Ayubade, Nik Abduraki, Michael Veal, Moses Achunu and Judith Byfield. Our fact checker was Jamila Wilkinson. Alex McInnis was the mix engineer. Also special thanks to Knitting Factory Records and BMG to the Kuti Family, Melissa o' Donnell to Inside Projects and Maggie Taylor. And big thanks to Carla Murthy. Leah Friedman and Shoshana Scholar. The head of creative development at audible is kate navin. Chief content officer rachel gyazza copyright 2025 by higher ground audio, llc. Sound recording copyright 2025 by higher ground. It.