1: To Hell and Back

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Fela Kuti: Fear No Man

Episode 1: "To Hell and Back"

Host: Jad Abumrad
Date: October 15, 2025

Overview:

In the debut episode of Fela Kuti: Fear No Man, host Jad Abumrad explores the central question: What is the real power of music and art in a world rife with injustice, violence, and change? Through interviews, oral history, and immersive sound design, this episode introduces the life, music, and political fire of Nigerian Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti, using the story of Dele Sosimi as a lens into the transformative potential of art. With contributions from friends, family, scholars, and global stars, the episode sets the stage for exploring how Fela’s music became both a balm and a weapon.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Fela Kuti's Influence and Legacy

• Jad Abumrad opens with reflections on art’s role in turbulent times and introduces Fela Kuti as "one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century" and the creator of Afrobeat—a genre blending jazz, funk, and political resistance. (01:15)
• Global Recognition: Prominent fans such as Questlove, Beyoncé, Flea, Paul McCartney, Burna Boy, Brian Eno, David Byrne, and Barack Obama testify to Fela's widespread artistic and social impact.
  • "Fela is the one figure whose story resonates with modern American hip hop culture." —Questlove (02:11)
  • "When I heard Fela, he absolutely blew my mind. I thought, 'This is really the future of music.'" —Brian Eno (03:19)
  • "Music like Fela’s is able to not just get folks moving... it also makes them feel alive." —Barack Obama (03:40)

2. Dele Sosimi’s Story: Microcosm of Nigeria’s History

• Who is Dele Sosimi?

  • Former keyboardist for Fela's band, now a global Afrobeat ambassador. (05:29)
  • His full name, Bamidele, means "you set foot on the motherland"; Shosemi invokes peace. (04:47–05:12)

• Growing Up between Cultures:

  • Born in London to Nigerian parents, Dele’s family returned to Nigeria after independence, reflecting optimism for nation-building (07:07, 07:31).

• The Promise and Betrayal of Nigerian Independence:

  • The hope of a new Nigeria gives way to postcolonial economic deals, foreign company exploitation, and political corruption. (14:05)

3. Corruption, Violence, and Profound Personal Loss

• Dele's Father’s Tragedy:
  • As a bank fraud auditor, his father discovers large-scale corruption and refuses to take hush money. (15:04–16:36)
  • He is killed in their home by a mob, an event witnessed by a young Dele. Traumatic details are shared with harrowing frankness:
    • "I just saw a body on the floor in red... Multiple stab wounds. There was a massive pickaxe entry into his head." —Dele Sosimi (19:56)
    • "Without a good name, you’re nothing." —Dele’s father to his children (16:47)
  • Family forced into silence and fear, highlighting the cost of speaking truth in a hostile regime. (22:24)

4. Encountering Fela Kuti: Compassion and Radicalization

• First Visit:

  • Dele, through a friend, meets Fela Kuti, who recognizes the family’s tragedy and asks:
    • "How’s your mom coping? How are you all coping?" (23:12)
    • Notably, Fela is the first to ask about their psychological well-being and introduces Dele to concepts of therapy and mental health. (23:52–24:41)
    • Fela’s empathy and activist resolve galvanize Dele:
      • "That statement. My life has changed. I said, that's it. It's my new hero. I will follow this man to hell and back. Now I know what my calling is." —Dele Sosimi (25:19)

• Transformation via Music:

  • Instead of traditional therapy, Dele turns to learning Fela’s music as self-healing, studying and internalizing hundreds of songs as a form of personal and collective therapy. (25:45)

5. The Healing Power of Repetition and Community

• Life in Egypt 80:

  • Dele describes joining Fela’s band, playing hypnotic riffs for hours—“just like the heart pumping.” (28:22–29:26)
  • Fela demanded precision and discipline, even fining musicians for mistakes:
    • "If he fined you more than twice in a night, all your wage is gone." (29:58)

• Ritual, Repetition, and Liberation:

  • The trance of Afrobeat became Dele’s healing:
    • "That repetitive thing just keeps me… oh, take another breath. Keep it going no matter what. Just like the heart pumping up." —Dele Sosimi (30:16)
    • "It's okay, it's okay, hanging there, hanging there." (31:09–31:30)
  • The loop and music offered a space of inner peace and even liberation, mirroring how Fela’s music served both artist and audience. (33:35–34:14)

6. From Personal Story to National Awakening

• Fela as Liberator and Contradiction:
  • Dele and Jad discuss the complexity of Fela: musical genius, truth-teller, and sometimes tyrant. (36:11)
    • "He didn't just speak the truth, he sang the truth. Some say he's the greatest musician in Africa... Some of that music was prophetic. Became a tyrant. People who are still hero worshipping him, I feel so sorry for them." —Dele Sosimi (36:11–36:32)
• Music as Weapon:
  • The episode closes by previewing the series’ wider questions: How does music generate liberation, radicalization, and resistance? Can a song be a weapon? (37:09)
    • "Music is the weapon. Music is the weapon. Music is the weapon." (37:28)
    • "If you're someone who doesn't think art has power, you need to listen to this." —Jad Abumrad (37:32)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• "[Fela] is the one figure whose story resonates with modern American hip hop culture." —Questlove (02:11)
• "Music like Fela's is able to not just get folks moving... it also makes them feel alive." —Barack Obama (03:40)
• "Multiple stab wounds. There was a massive pickaxe entry into his head." —Dele Sosimi recalling his father’s murder (19:56)
• "That statement — my life has changed. I said, that's it. It's my new hero. I will follow this man to hell and back. Now I know what my calling is." —Dele Sosimi on Fela’s compassion (25:19)
• "That repetitive thing just keeps me… just like the heart pumping up, pumping up every minute, every second." —Dele Sosimi on playing with Fela (30:16)
• "Oh, this is really liberating." —David Byrne (03:28, repeated by Jad at 35:00)
• "Music is the weapon." —Chanted by several (37:28)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00-03:56: Why Fela Kuti matters; testimony from major artists
• 04:47-08:16: Introduction to Dele Sosimi’s background and family’s return to Nigeria
• 13:26-16:47: Dele’s father’s fight against corruption and subsequent murder
• 23:12-25:19: Dele meets Fela; Fela’s care, activist resolve, and inspiration
• 28:22-31:30: Dele’s experience in Egypt 80, repetition as healing
• 36:11-37:32: Complicated legacy and preview for the larger story—music as a weapon

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Tone and Style

The episode weaves together journalistic rigor, personal testimony, and lush soundbites. Jad Abumrad’s narration is inquisitive and empathetic, deeply engaged in exploring art’s possibilities and limits, asking not just, “Can music make us feel?” but “Can it change the world?” Dele Sosimi’s contributions are heartfelt, raw, and vulnerable, encapsulating what it means to find healing and purpose in the crucible of trauma.

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Conclusion

To Hell and Back launches the series with an intimate, urgent portrait of how Fela Kuti’s music ignited collective and personal transformation. By zeroing in on Dele Sosimi’s journey—from unspeakable loss to healing on stage—listeners are invited to consider: sometimes, a groove is more than a groove. Sometimes, it’s a heartbeat for liberation.

Transcript

[Jad Abumrad]

Audible Originals and Higher Ground Audio present Fela Kuti Fear no Man I'm Jad Abumrad. In a world that is on fire. What do we do with art? Like, what can music do? Can it actually change things? Like really change the world? Let's find out. In this series, we're going to look at the life and the music of Fela Kuti. Always get my tongue, always trips over that. Anikulapo Kuti, the father of Afrobeat, the.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Black president, the chief priest.

[Jad Abumrad]

I'm going to argue that Fela is one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, from 1 of the most important countries that we in the west rarely think about, but should Nigeria. He created an entirely new form of music that not only mixes jazz and funk and all these things, but also layers in resistance, bakes it in. Fela answers those questions about music and art in ways that are beautiful and troubling and profound. And I'm not the only one who thinks this. Here's a quick list. Ayo Adebiri, actor, writer, someone I really respect. She's in the Bear. Great show. On some red carpet somewhere, she was asked, oh, this question. A musician. I have a cult like fascination with her. Answer.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Fela Kuti, who is a Nigerian legend.

[Jad Abumrad]

Is a very complicated man. Fela has to be the epicenter in Questlove, one of the great musical minds of our time.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

I mean, Fela is the one figure whose story resonates with modern American hip hop culture.

[Jad Abumrad]

The passion, the pain, Jay Z, the strength, the need to get the message out there. Beyonce famously quoted Fela on one of her albums.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Look, it's like, listen to it.

[Jad Abumrad]

Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

It's the hardest shit you've ever heard in your life. They invited me out to the African.

[Jad Abumrad]

Shrine, which was his club just outside Lagos. Then There is Paul McCartney's Sir Paul the Beatle tells the story of seeing Fela play. And it was very intense. But when this music broke, I ended up just weeping.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Looked like one of the most amazing.

[Jad Abumrad]

Musical moments of my life.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

So this is Fela Kuti.

[Jad Abumrad]

And then there's Burna Boy, the African musician to sell out a US stadium. In a video, he shows off a tattoo of Fela's face on his left forearm and also a fellah necklace around his neck.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

It's like my hero, like the best musician I ever knew.

[Jad Abumrad]

Just to pile on. Brian Eno, legendary record producer.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

When I heard Fella, he absolutely blew my mind.

[Jad Abumrad]

I thought, this is really the future of music. David Byrne this is not just feel good music. There's something about this. They're doing stuff I'd never heard before. And I thought, oh, this is really liberating. Even President Obama had some thoughts.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Music like fellas is able to not just get folks moving, get them on their feet, but it also makes them feel alive. Our very best art and our very best music stirs the soul.

[Jad Abumrad]

So how. How is he doing that exactly, to create that reaction in all those people? Unfortunately, we can't talk to him because he died in 1997 and he didn't leave a lot of tape behind. But for the last three years, we've been talking to the people who knew.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Him, either in old school style or in a new school style, who fought.

[Jad Abumrad]

With him, sang with him, took blows with him, and tried to. To change the world with him. The story they tell, I hope you'll agree, has everything to do with this moment. As we're all searching for, what do we do now?

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Am I gonna hold it? No, no, I'll hold it. Oh, thank God. That can be okay.

[Jad Abumrad]

I want to start this series with sort of a prologue by playing you some tape from an interview that we did with a man named Dele, where he told us about his encounter with Vela.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Hello, my name is Dele. Shosemi Bami. Dele is the full name. Bamidele means you set foot on the motherland where we come from.

[Jad Abumrad]

And Shosemi, your last name, does that have a meaning?

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

It's a name given to those who always advocate peace. Shoes. Let there be peace.

[Jad Abumrad]

Listening back to that intro, I realized Dele's name basically contains his story. And his story, in a way, contains the story of Nigeria with all the promise and tragedy built in.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

So fire on.

[Jad Abumrad]

We met delay in a small studio space in London where he lives and plays in a bunch of bands. He has a trio, quartet, quintet, orchestra. He's been called the ambassador of Afrobeat. That is of the genre of music that Fella Couti created. In fact, there were many times during our interview where Dele would sing a complete Fela song and do all the parts. Vocals, backing vocals. He would sing all the different saxes, the altos, the baritones, all the trumpet lines, the different guitar lines, the percussion, the shakers, all the things. We'd call him up because we'd heard that he played keyboard in Fela's band in the late 70s and early 80s. We did not expect the story to go where it went. You were born in the uk, you.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Just said, yes, born here. And then we went back home. That's how I met Ferla.

[Jad Abumrad]

He told me his parents were Nigerian, but his dad had gone to London to study economics. And he was born soon as they got to London. But then when he was 4, 1967, his dad decided to move them all back. What were the circumstances of your parents coming in?

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

In Nigeria, we had just gained independence.

[Jad Abumrad]

1960. In 1960, sovereignty to a new nation, the new Nigeria.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

There was celebration, jubilation in the streets.

[Jad Abumrad]

1960, October.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

In every town, every corner. This the date we've been waiting to celebrate.

[Jad Abumrad]

Nigeria is free.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

He was like, yeah, we kicked the British up. Everybody be ready to play your part. We can rule ourselves.

[Jad Abumrad]

And so Dele's dad decides to move the family back to Nigeria because he was a believer.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Yeah, we're going to build our own nation.

[Jad Abumrad]

He was going to put his economics degree to work to help build the country's banking sector.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

When my dad got his qualifications, there was already a job waiting for him. So he didn't even wait. So I went home with my dad. 1967.

[Jad Abumrad]

He was 4 at the time. And for the first time in his life, he was living not in a flat in the city, but out in the country in the place where he was actually from.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

I hated it. No ice cream. There were goats that were walking to houses. I saw lizards and I was like baby crocodiles. No way. What's going on?

[Jad Abumrad]

But I'm going to jump ahead a little bit. It was also in Nigeria where he met Fela.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

I was in high school. Every morning before the assembly, we used to jump on the piano. Me just popular songs. Anybody who knows the song would just play, you know. Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

And every so often at these pre assembly jam sessions, this kid would drop.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

In two years above me, slightly older.

[Jad Abumrad]

He would play with them. And he was pretty good, this guy.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

You know, he just used to jam. I'm like, how does he know all these songs? I just said, I'm gonna. Anytime he's playing, I'm gonna be watching him.

[Jad Abumrad]

That kid, it turned out, was Fela's nephew, Koye. Fela was a massive star at this point. He was like Elvis. If Elvis were also getting into violent clashes with the government on a regular basis. More on that in a later episode. Point is, he was huge. And so his nephew, he would come.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

To school and be showing off. Oh, this is Fela's latest track. It's called Yellow Fever. This fellow's latest track is called Opposite People. This is Fela's latest track. It's called Colonial Ment. So one day he was playing and there were some things he can't play together with his right hand. So I just said, okay, let me play that one you're playing. So I just went.

[Jad Abumrad]

Bela's nephew would play one line, he would play the other. And he says they both loved how the riffs would sort of snake in and out of each other. A fella trademark. And how when they were playing, their fingers would almost overlap.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

The symmetry of those two together, they could feel the tapestry of the two patterns. So he was so happy, he was like, keep it going. And then he changed.

[Jad Abumrad]

Long story short, Dele and this older kid, Koye, his piano buddy, a great friendship.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Commodore evolved. You know, after meeting him, he'll leave school and he'll be going for piano lessons, and I'll go with him just to watch because my mom will not pay for piano lessons.

[Jad Abumrad]

This goes on for many years. One day, Koye introduces Dele to his cousin Femi, Fela's son. They become tight, and several years into their friendship, Femi says to Dele, hey, I'm gonna go see my dad.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

You wanna come?

[Jad Abumrad]

Wanna come with me, Fela?

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Yes, please. And then we went. And then he introduced me, this is not my friend I told you about. And he looked at me like, how's your mom coping?

[Jad Abumrad]

How is your mom coping?

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

How are you all coping?

[Jad Abumrad]

That meeting would change Delay's life in profound ways. Hey, everybody. What if you had a magic power where you could find whatever it is you're looking for at any given moment right away? Parking spot right there. Holiday gift shopping, done. Pants that actually fit perfect. Boom. Imagine how much time you would save. While you may never instantly find these things, if you are hiring, you can find qualified candidates right away time and time again with ZipRecruiter. And today you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com/fela ZipRecruiter's seemingly magic technology matches you with top talent fast. And that is why ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site based on G2. Want to know right away how many qualified candidates are in your area? Look no further than ZipRecruiter. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And right now, you can try it for [e-mail] Phyla again, that is ziprecruiter.com Fela ZipRecruiter the smartest way to hire this is Fela Kuti Fear no man. Back to the story.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

How are you all coping?

[Jad Abumrad]

That meeting with Fela would change Delay's life in profound ways. But before we get there, it's important to say a few things to fill in that gap that I skipped over a second ago. From age 4 to 14, from when Dele arrived in Nigeria to when he met Fela Kuti. In those 10 years, things did not go as planned for either Dele or the country initially. His dad got them set up. Your dad was doing finances for the. For the government at that point, or.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

No, no, he was working for a bank straight away. He worked with Standard bank. From Standard bank to Barclays bank, from Barclays bank to National Bank.

[Jad Abumrad]

And his dad became a very important person, one of the top financial auditors in the country. They lived in a compound. They had guards. Dele worshiped his dad. Things were good. But the country was shifting. Toxic seeds were growing. Even before independence, substantial reserves of oil have been located under the River Niger. He had all this oil discovered in the south of the country. This year. Exports may be worth 5 million in 10 years time, perhaps 50 million. So the British forced a deal on the new Nigerian government. They said, just because we're leaving doesn't mean you get to use our stuff. If you're going to pull all this new oil out of the ground, you're going to need our equipment. And if you're going to use our equipment, you have to sign a bunch of deals with British companies. In that way, colonialism really didn't end. It just changed clothes. The Nigerian government was not technically beholden to the British government anymore, but they were now beholden to British companies and eventually German companies and Dutch companies and American companies. Those companies would continue to extract resources, and a very small group of Nigerian political elite would make a lot of money in exchange. In the middle of this shift, Dele's dad is working at a bank doing financial auditing, trying to keep the books straight.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

That was his job. He was one of the fraud auditors.

[Jad Abumrad]

And in 1974, 5, he discovers there's a whole lot of money missing from the bank.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

He had made his findings and he was about to release a big scandal and they tried to shut him up.

[Jad Abumrad]

Who's trying to shut him up and why?

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

A syndicate of people who had ruined the bank, defrauded the bank.

[Jad Abumrad]

Delay says his dad was about to file a report, about to name names. He's still not sure who exactly was going to be named, but he suspects they were pretty high up at the time. He Wasn't aware of any of this. He was 12. And he remembers one day some very well dressed men came to the door.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

They came to the house. When your dad comes back, tell him this is his new car. They gave us keys.

[Jad Abumrad]

These men brought a car.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

And we were like, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh. And then the next thing they come, another visit.

[Jad Abumrad]

This time they hand his dad a.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Briefcase and he said, look, whatever's in it is yours. And then he's throwing the keys back at her and said, get out of my house. Take your briefcase, take care of everything. Get out of my house. We're children. We don't know what's going on. Yeah, luckily he told us. I've just been. I've just been told to shut up about my work. I spent all these sleepless nights and I've been told I should not report what I found. Can you imagine?

[Jad Abumrad]

So the car was a bribe? He explained that to you?

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Of course, all did. He called all of us. Was like you see in life, sometimes you get to the crossroads. You got to make a stance. Without a good name, you're nothing.

[Jad Abumrad]

At this point in Nigeria, 1975, the initial civilian government was long gone. There had been several coups. The military government that was in power was actively disappearing. People killing journalists with mail bombs, Hanging environmental protesters who protested against the oil companies. This would all come about years later in public hearings. At the time, delay's dad had fortified the walls of their house and put bars on the window. It would all come to a head on the night of September 11, 1975. This is about four years before he would meet Fela, my dad.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

He was supposed to submit the report the next day. We went to bed. They came that night, about 40 of them. They got in, they started assaulting the building.

[Jad Abumrad]

Around midnight, this gang of 40, they first overwhelmed the security guards and then they started pounding on the doors and windows with sledgehammers.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

That's the only way they could get him. Neighbors called for the police. Police said, oh, we run out of fuel.

[Jad Abumrad]

They said they ran out of fuel. Yeah.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

One of the police stations that they called and blah, blah, blah, blah. We couldn't get anybody to rescue.

[Jad Abumrad]

So you're on your own.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Yeah. My dad told us to separate into different rooms.

[Jad Abumrad]

He says he ran to the back of his house, to his room and hid in a closet. He could hear the muffled sounds of screaming and fighting getting closer and closer.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

And then the door of the room where I was In. I was thinking myself, oh, my God, this door is now gonna keep in.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, my God.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Door was just about to cave in, and I was like, I'm not gonna go down without. I was saying to myself, what do I do? Do I punch? Do I kick? Do I just grab onto one and bite? You know, I was calculating speed of thoughts. And then suddenly we just hear. And we had people running, running. We just had. I was like the door stopping and I was like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Our security guard had run into town. He had gone into, like, city center to gather his friends. There were about hundred of them marching from the village. So they got to our house just as our own door was caving in. They've gone, They've gone. Thank God. Thank God. Then I heard the guard shouting our names to make sure we were all right. Calling our names. I said, I'm in my room. I'm in my room. And then I opened the door. I just saw a body on the floor in red. My dad had pajamas, you know, pyjamas, matching top and bottom. It was soaked in blood.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, my God.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Multiple stab wounds. There was a massive pickaxe entry into his head.

[Jad Abumrad]

Jesus dang. Del says his father was unrecognizable.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Completely fucked up. My mom was distraught. Then the burial. Because we couldn't bury him immediately, we had to wait. It took a week. And because it was multiple perforations all over his body, distinct. Oh, Lord. I was like, why do we have to lie him instead? And my mom said, it's good. Let people see what they did to my darling, you know?

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, my God.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

But over the years, I can still talk about it, but evil damn. So, yeah, God damn. How do you just ask for someone's life to be snuffed out? You know, we had to waste about 10. Cologne, perfume spraying the room because my mom is open. Coughing as one big massive stitch to keep the skull together because it pickaxed him on the head. I was like, why?

[Jad Abumrad]

Imagine you are 12 and you see that. How do you process that? I have a 13 year old kid. I don't even know how you answer that question. But making matters worse for Dele, he was told, don't process it. That thing that just happened, just pretend it didn't happen.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Family, friends, they were telling my mom, don't give interviews. Go and hide. Be really scared. They may still come for you. Some people said, please don't stop coming to our houses. Please don't. We don't know if you're being traced.

[Jad Abumrad]

He was told, don't talk about it. Keep your head down. But he'd seen what he'd seen. He told us night after night he would have this dream where he was trying to warn his dad that something bad was about to happen. But his dad wouldn't listen. And then he would wake up feeling guilty. So that's where Dele was at when his new friend Femi introduced him to his dad. Fela Kuti. Fela.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Yes, please. And then we went. And then he introduced me. This is that my friend Dele I was telling you about. You remember the son of that banker everybody in Lagos knew. Chief Auditor, national bank executed. And he looked at me like, tell me what happened to your dad. Tell me the story. The same thing. As I explained it, I explained to him. He shook his head, said, how's your mom coping? How are you all coping?

[Jad Abumrad]

No one had ever asked him that question before.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Have you had psychological counseling or psychotherapy? I said, no, I didn't know what I was.

[Jad Abumrad]

He said he'd never heard those words before.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

But my mom worked in a library and it was just behind my high school. So I finished from school, walk around the back of the school into the library. In those days, we didn't have Google thesaurus. Psychological. Okay, psychology.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's so interesting that he introduced you to the idea that you. You need to take your psyche seriously.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Oh. Then he said, look, I'm going to fight for your family because right now both your mom and your children should be in therapy. And right now your mom should not be working. She should be on permanent holiday. The full salary of your dad. I'm going to fight for that for you. I'm going to see what I can.

[Jad Abumrad]

How did that hit you?

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

I was shocked when he said that. I was like, he didn't know my dad. He's not even family. But he was the only. Not the first. He was the only person who were.

[Jad Abumrad]

Bitter, as in pissed, not scared.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

That statement. My life has changed. I said, that's it. It's my new hero. I will follow this man to hell and back. Now I know what my calling is.

[Jad Abumrad]

But here's the thing. Delay did not find his therapy where the book told him to look. Instead, he started methodically learning all of Phila's music, all his back catalog.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Started teaching myself as a teenager. I was 14 going on 15.

[Jad Abumrad]

He says he would hit up anybody who had a fala record, borrow it. And then he would study the piano part, the rhythm piano, 50, 60 songs. By the time he was 17. He started hanging around the Shrine, Fela's club, and watching Fela rehearse.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

One day I walked up to him and I was like, fela, can I play this song? I've learned it. He was like, you sure? Yeah. And I want to take a solo. You sure? Go ahead. I got on stage. He counts me in. You have to know that's when I come in.

[Jad Abumrad]

He says. That first run through. Fela would occasionally glance at him and smile.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

It was the first song I climbed on stage. It's a big deal for me. Authority Stealing.

[Jad Abumrad]

We'll be right back.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

You scaled the sheer cliff face, battling frostbite, running low on oxygen. The wind pierced your skin and every inch was agony. You reached heights no other human had before while getting nowhere at airport security. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover best selling action titles on audible.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Fela Couti. Fear no Man. Let's return to Dele's story.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

It's a big deal for me. Authority Stealing.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay, so pretty soon he had joined Fela's band, Egypt 80, as a rhythm pianist. Which meant, you know, there are 20, 25 people on stage. You have a horn section, the bass, the drums, percussionists, guitarists, multiple guitarists. And way over on the left side of the stage was him sitting at a Rhodes piano. There are videos on YouTube where you can see these fleeting glimpses of him. He looks like a baby, scrawny Adam Zeppel. And there would be nights, he says, where they would play a song like Authority Stealing. And it would go on for well over an hour, just that song. Which meant after the opening, dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. After that, Dele would settle into one riff that he would just have to keep playing.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

It starts with that bass line. Then I go, this one.

[Jad Abumrad]

He played it for us backstage in London before a gig with his quintet. He had this little electric piano that he demonstrated on Can Imagine me playing.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

For 40 minutes without stopping him.

[Jad Abumrad]

Fela took repetition to an extreme. We talked to one person who told us that he once made his band record one song for 24 hours straight, an entire rotation of the earth. And he had a policy that every musician had to play their loops exactly the same each time.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

And if they didn't, you just get fined.

[Jad Abumrad]

You get fined, we get fined. Wait, how much?

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

If he find you more than twice in a night, all your witch is gone.

[Jad Abumrad]

Can you imagine? So we asked him. Playing that one thing over and over again for hours with all that pressure hanging over you, doesn't that make you nuts?

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

No, no, no, no. No way. No.

[Jad Abumrad]

He said, actually it was the exact opposite.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

That repetitive thing just keeps me. Oh, take another breath. Keep it going no matter what. Just like the heart pumping up, pumping up every minute, every second. Because the kick, kick of the drums.

[Jad Abumrad]

Walk me through what happens in your mind over the course of those repetitions.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

It's like, it's gonna be okay. It's okay. It's okay. Hanging there, hanging there, hanging there. It's okay. There's more to coming in over. It's okay, it's okay.

[Jad Abumrad]

He says every night when he would play that one, the loop, it's okay. He would feel his body calm, his breath would slow down. He would slide his attention into his own lungs and then pretend he was pushing against the walls of his lungs, pushing them out. And then he would slow his heart.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Rate.

[Jad Abumrad]

Until his heart matched the K. And after about 20 minutes of that, he would then drift back to the surface.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Fella told me a secret one day, said, look, after many solos and all that, he said, why you want to take your solo? Look how many people dancing on the floor zeroing onto one of them. Check their moves, find something to engage with within the nature of that ostenato. It could be a little boy. If I just zero in on it and he zeros in, I'm like. And then he's looking at me like, okay.

[Jad Abumrad]

In the interview, he sort of mimed what would happen. He would wink at the boy. The boy would wink back. You're sort of like locking eyes and doing movements together. He would move his head to the left. The boy would do it. Then to the right, Left, left, right.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Someone I would like to be friends with.

[Jad Abumrad]

Pretty soon they were basically dance partners at a distance.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Oh, okay. And I'd be like, maybe just to see if it would. And I get reaction.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is the one part where I wish we had video just so we can play what you're doing right now.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

And I need to go.

[Jad Abumrad]

At this stage of the interview, Delay was basically having a full on dance party in his seat. Just imagining him and that boy duetting back and forth.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

I just used to trip on hypnotic cleansing. So that was my therapy, I said, I went and checked the psychological psychotherapy and all that. And I realized that it could either be administered or it is something. You actually have to find a way what makes you. What takes you to a place where you are okay.

[Jad Abumrad]

I gotta say, watching you sing the songs, I feel it's such an interesting experience watching you kind of feel like you're like Channeling something.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Oh, man, the energy I got. I just love doing this stuff, man. It's my healing.

[Jad Abumrad]

Coming out of that interview, the word that I kept thinking about was not healing, actually. It was the word David Byrne used at the beginning. Oh, this is really liberating liberation, how trauma holds you in place. It's like a cage. But Fella gave Dele the opportunity to step out of that cage and be free. At least for as long as he was playing that riff. The reason I started with Delays, he's just one guy, but imagine a million Deles having more or less the same experience. Like atoms, one tiny explosion bumps into the next, into the next, into the next, until you have a cascade of energy that creates something much bigger. In this series we'll show you how Felar did that, not just for Dele, but for the entire country of Nigeria and the world.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

It's amazing. It's amazing. Bela was a genius. Someone's got to speak the truth. And he was a musical genius. He didn't just speak the truth, he sang the truth. Some say he's the greatest musician in Africa.

[Jad Abumrad]

Others that he's a prophet.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Some of that music was prophetic. Became a tyrant. People who are still hero worshipping him, I feel so sorry for them.

[Jad Abumrad]

He's a very complicated man. And we'll get into all that. We'll tell you about his life.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Can't tell you how many times the police army parked in front of our.

[Jad Abumrad]

House through the prism of his family.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

Kids surround it and riddle the house with bullets.

[Jad Abumrad]

I said, why would you do that? We'll hear from the people who radicalized him. You can use your music to uplift people. I saw the delight and the people radicalized by him. Will the pose a king, ignite a youth movement? Two, actually 50 years apart.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

They're shooting us. They're shooting us.

[Jad Abumrad]

The music was like inside of me. It was all around. It was just like, you know, being hypnotized. Drop into a 24 hour party. We'll travel to Lagos, Paris, London. Dive into hidden archives to find out what does rebellion look like. Sound like when the weapon is not guns.

[Dele Shosemi Bami]

And I said, music is the weapon. Music is the weapon. Music is the weapon.

[Jad Abumrad]

But music, weapon of the future. If you're someone who doesn't think art has power, you need to listen to this. This is Fela Kuti. Fear no Man Jade, I'm Jad Abumrad. Let's go. 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, Jad Abumrad, Ben Adair and Ian Wheeler. Written and hosted by yours truly. Higher Ground executive producers were Nick White, Mukta Mohan and Dan Fierman. 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, but Ruby Heron Walsh was lead producer and researcher. Our producers were Fefe Odudu and Oluakemi Aladiusui. Ben Adair was our editor with editing help from Carla Murthy. Consulting producers were Bolu Babalola, Dotun Ayubade, Nik, Abdur Aqib, 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, to Melissa o' Donnell to Inside Projects and Maggie Taylor for marketing support. And big thanks to Carla Murthy, Leah Friedman and Shoshana Scholar. We couldn't have done any of this without their Head of Creative Development at Audible is Kate Navin. Chief Content Officer Rachel Gyaza Copyright 2025 by Higher Ground Audio, LLC. Sound Recording Copyright 2025 by Higher Ground Audio, L.L.C. this is Tonya Moseley, co host of Fresh Air. You'll see your favorite actors, directors and comedians on late night TV shows or YouTube, but what you get with Fresh Air is a deep dive. Spend some quality time with people like Billie Eilish Questlove, Ariana Grande, Stephen Colbert, and so many more. We ask questions you won't hear asked anywhere else. Listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYYY. I'm Dallas Taylor, host of 20,000HZ, a lovingly crafted podcast about the amazing world of sound. From music and video games to science and history, the world of sound is full of great stories. The TIE Fighter was made with a car passing by a microphone on wet pavement and then layered on top of that are these elephant growls. You can choose between snares. You can start chopping up the Amen break and rearranging the individual beats into other configurations. And this barely scratches the surface. We've also revealed the hidden stories behind the most iconic sounds to ever be created to unlock your sonic world. Follow 20,000HZ right here in your podcast player.