9: Things Will Collide

Summary

Fela Kuti: Fear No Man — Episode 9: Things Will Collide

Podcast: Fela Kuti: Fear No Man
Host: Jad Abumrad (Higher Ground)
Date: November 19, 2025

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Overview

Chapter 9, “Things Will Collide,” explores a turning point in Fela Kuti’s life and the fate of his music-driven movement. Against the backdrop of FESTAC ‘77 (the epochal pan-African cultural festival in Lagos, Nigeria), the episode recounts the collision of art, activism, and political violence. At the center: Fela’s radical resistance, his uneasy flirtation with the establishment, and the brutal state crackdown that followed. Through survivor accounts, journalism, and powerful archival interviews, the episode examines the transformative but dangerous power of art — and the devastating costs for Fela, his commune, and his family.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. FESTAC ‘77: A Pan-African Dream

Segment: 02:00 - 07:31

• FESTAC ‘77 (“African Woodstock”) represented an unprecedented cultural gathering:
  • 15,000 participants from 70+ countries, including luminaries like Stevie Wonder, Audre Lorde, and Sun Ra.
  • Marilyn Nance, an emerging photographer: “It was historic. It's like, I gotta be there.” (04:16)
• The festival was seen as Nigeria's "coming out party" after independence, fueled by oil wealth and national pride.
• “Nigeria somehow shook a lot of that off in that period and was clearly its own country, run by itself, for itself, for better or for worse.” — John Darten, NYT journalist (04:56)
• A sense of African diaspora connection: “The joy of finding each other and being together.” — Laide Kuti (07:31)
• FESTAC as a grand “comparing of notes” between African and diasporic cultures: “The Egyptians are looking at the Cameroonians and the Cameroonians are looking at the Senegalese, and the Senegalese are looking at the Americans...” — Marilyn Nance (07:09)

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2. Fela’s Conflict with FESTAC and the State

Segment: 07:44 - 15:06

• Fela, at the peak of his power, confidence, and political ambition, was recruited to the FESTAC planning committee (08:05).
  • Fela’s song “Napoi” (“Things Will Collide”) — the basis for the episode’s title — represents his artistic/life collision with the establishment (08:05 - 09:38).
• He presented a radical nine-point program urging the festival to “redirect the thinking of the common man...re-educate Africans about colonization, history, and religion...rid the present generation of the imposed influence of foreign cultures...” (12:28).
  • The government “immediately rejected” his demands: “You are not here to give us idea...we already know what we are going to do for the festival.” — FESTAC chairman (13:39)
• Fela resigns in protest, seeing his intelligence sidelined. “I’m invited just because of my stature as a musician, not my stature as a thinker, as a politician. I resigned from this committee.” — Fela, via ID (14:14)
• He and the Young African Pioneers (YAP) go on the offensive, publishing critiques of government policies and corruption around FESTAC (15:10).

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3. Counter-FESTAC: Fela’s Defiant Stage

Segment: 16:06 - 19:18

• In response to the official festival, Fela organizes a “Counter-FESTAC” — concerts at The Shrine, the nerve center of his movement.
  • International star power: visiting artists (e.g., Stevie Wonder) all gravitate to the Shrine.
  • “From the government’s point of view, this has gotta be the most annoying thing they've ever experienced.” — Jad Abumrad (17:01)
• These nights were “a symbolic fuck you to the government... in the purest, most refined form. And the government had paid for it.” — Ben Adair (19:02, 19:08)
• Fela performs songs like “Zombie,” a blistering satire of the military, which was banned from radio but not from the Shrine stage: “He played it every night during counter-FESTAC.” — Ben Adair (18:48)
• State security forces and soldiers are present in the audience.

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4. The Personal Becomes Political: Old Enmities and Brewing Storm

Segment: 19:18 - 21:30

• Power shifts: The progressive General Murtala Muhammad is deposed and murdered; General Olusegun Obasanjo (Fela’s old rival from their shared home region) takes over and escalates tensions.
• Obasanjo presides over FESTAC’s infrastructure and legacy projects, setting the stage for a personal and political showdown.

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5. Catastrophe at the Commune: The Attack on Kalakuta

Segment: 23:06 - 36:09

• Survivor testimonies (Fela’s wives and daughter) reconstruct the day soldiers razed the Kalakuta Republic:
  • The incident is triggered by a minor scuffle; the military demands the handover of a member from Fela’s commune.
  • Fela refuses: “You want me to produce somebody to you uniform people? You want to go and kill them? No.” — Laide Kuti, recounting Fela’s words (24:03)
• Tensions escalate:
  • Soldiers return in force — “as a thousand soldiers with their gun, everything” (26:41) — and power is cut to the neighborhood.
  • Fela taunts them by playing “Zombie” from the balcony (26:06).
  • The state head, Obasanjo, reportedly arrives in person and signals the order to burn the commune (27:46).
• Cataclysmic violence:
  • Soldiers storm in, set fires, destroy belongings, beat inhabitants.
  • Sexual violence and humiliation are rampant — “sexual violence was front and center in the invasion.” — Ben Adair (31:29)
  • Fela’s mother is thrown from a second-story window: “They threw that woman out of window.” — Laide Kuti (28:37)
  • Survivors describe horrific beatings, mutilations, and psychological trauma: “They started stabbing my head. Look at all my head. I had 16 stitches…” — Laide Kuti (29:47)
  • Lara Kuti loses an eye and endures sexual assault (30:25 - 30:41).
• Massive crowd witnesses the raid:
  • “There were about 60,000 people watching. This scene was like a big theater show.” — Fela Kuti (36:31)
  • Despite Fela’s attempt to rally support from the crowd, “nobody lifted a finger” to intervene (37:44 – 38:00).

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6. Aftermath and Legacy

Segment: 35:17 - 42:00

• After the attack, Fela and his family are scattered in military hospitals, suffering from severe injuries and trauma.
• Fela’s mother never recovers, dying a year later: “She was never herself again after that.” — Yenni Kuti (35:37)
• The sexual violence and attack were designed to crush not only Fela but the powerful, matriarchal backbone of his movement.
• The episode is a national turning point, coinciding with economic collapse: “Suddenly the rice that her family bought at the store had stones in it...It was now impossible to ignore the problems that Fela had been railing about.”
• Fela transforms his pain and injustice into artistic testimony, e.g., the song “Unknown Soldier.”
• Questions linger about collective action, courage, and complicity: Did Fela expect too much of the bystanders? Would things be different in the age of social media? (38:00 – 39:05)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

(Timestamps in MM:SS format)

• “Brothers and sisters. The secret of life is to have no fear.” — Laide Kuti (00:27)
• “I'm invited just because of my stature as a musician, not my stature as a thinker, as a politician. I resigned from this committee.” — Fela Kuti via ID (14:14)
• “The joy of finding each other and being together.” — Laide Kuti (07:31)
• “Fela had electrified the fence.” — Ben Adair (25:33)
• “Zombie in particular was an attack on the military...it's basically calling the military Zombies.” — John Darten (18:26)
• “They threw that woman out of window.” — Laide Kuti, on Fela’s mother (28:37)
• “I had 16 stitches on my head.” — Laide Kuti (29:47)
• “He would dream that his house was still there. [...] I can't, because my own memory of the armed forces was brutal. Brutal.” — Yenni Kuti (33:52, 34:12)
• “There were about 60,000 people watching. This scene was like a big theater show.” — Fela Kuti (36:31)
• “Nobody lifted a finger. Nobody lifted a finger.” — Yenni Kuti (38:00)
• “Is it only the Kutis that must fight? [...] Stay here. Let's fight it. Together. Fela stayed here. Fela never left here. We the Kuchis have never left here. We are here inside these fight.” — Yenni Kuti (38:22)

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Timestamps for Essential Segments

| Time | Segment | |----------|---------------------------------------------| | 02:00 | Introduction to FESTAC ‘77 | | 07:44 | Fela joins then quits FESTAC committee | | 11:35 | Fela’s political demands & government clash | | 16:06 | Counter-FESTAC described | | 18:26 | “Zombie” and its significance | | 23:19 | The day of the Kalakuta attack begins | | 26:06 | Fela plays “Zombie” to taunt soldiers | | 28:37 | Attack: Fela’s mother thrown from window | | 29:23 | Survivor testimony of violence | | 36:31 | Fela on the crowd witnessing the attack | | 38:22 | Yenni Kuti on collective action and legacy |

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Tone and Style

The episode moves between oral history, survivor testimony, and investigative journalism. Selves are deeply personal, raw, and often emotional. Abumrad’s narration weaves context and empathy, while Fela and those around him speak fiercely, with a blend of righteous anger, heartbreak, and undimmed pride.

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Conclusion

“Things Will Collide” powerfully illustrates the peril and possibility at the heart of Fela Kuti’s life’s work: music as a weapon, celebration as resistance, and art as an agent of social transformation — but never without risk. In the fires of FESTAC ‘77 and the ensuing state violence, the world witnesses both the cost of resistance and the enduring imprint of Afrobeat as a language of liberation.

Transcript

[Ben Adair]

It was just. It was just pure, pure mayhem.

[Yenni Kuti]

Blackout everywhere.

[Jad Abumrad]

Dark.

[Laide Kuti]

Threw that woman out of window.

[Yenni Kuti]

They've killed them. They've killed them. It was.

[Laide Kuti]

Brothers and sisters. The secret of life is to have no fear.

[Ben Adair]

We all have to understand that.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Fela Kuti. Fear no, man. I'm Jad Abumrad. Chapter nine, Things Will Collide. I got that title from the name of a Fela song, but it also accurately describes what's about to happen. Quick recap. 1970, fellah comes back from LA radicalized. He sets up a commune which he declares a separate country in Nigeria. 7345. He is clashing with the government repeatedly, also releasing a stream of hits. And you begin to see him transition into politics. He starts a youth movement. 20, 30,000 people join up. The government is worried all of it would come to a head in 1977. 1977 is the year when everything changes. Everything. The sense of possibility, the sense of what the future could be. It all shifts in an instant. Not just for him, but for the country as a whole. So I want to try and tell you those two stories at once. And they intersect at one of the great cultural festivals in human history that you've probably never heard of. Let's start there.

[Marilyn Nance]

I had just turned 23, so I.

[Jad Abumrad]

Was pretty much 22 right at the time. Marilyn Nance was a budding photographer. She would become a very well known photographer in later years. A person that other photographers would study. But at that moment, she'd really only taken just a few pictures.

[Marilyn Nance]

One in particular, that was a photograph of my grandmother.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is the one that got you to Feste?

[Marilyn Nance]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

It's a picture of her grandmother sitting at a table eating black and white. Very moody. That picture gets chosen for an exhibit which then catches the attention of some very important people.

[Marilyn Nance]

That's how I became the photo photographer for the North American zone contingent of Fessac77.

[John Darten]

Oh, wow.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's like a. Yeah, that's like being in the Olympics.

[Marilyn Nance]

Yeah, exactly.

[Jad Abumrad]

Had you ever been to Nigeria?

[Marilyn Nance]

Never been out the country.

[Jad Abumrad]

Suddenly she says she was on this janky plane with her camera sitting next to. Let's see, everyone.

[Marilyn Nance]

That's Rosa Guy. I was like, I was sitting next to Rosa Guy, famous writer. So there were luminaries. Behind me was. That's Audre Lorde there. I am a black lesb feminist, warrior, poet, mother.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Sun Ra, ambassador from the intergalactic regions of outer space.

[Laide Kuti]

I had two guns on me.

[Marilyn Nance]

Queen Mother Moore was on the Plane.

[Jad Abumrad]

Civil rights leader.

[Laide Kuti]

I had one in my bosom and one in my pocketbook.

[Marilyn Nance]

Where's the picture of Stevie Wonder?

[Jad Abumrad]

Stevie Wonder was at Festac?

[Marilyn Nance]

Yeah. I mean, Stevie was there and people were like all up in his face, you know. There were like thousands of people that went there.

[Laide Kuti]

Festac 77 brought together 15,000 participants from over 70 countries.

[Jad Abumrad]

It's been called the African Woodstock, but I'm not sure that does it justice. Festac was meant to unite an entire continent.

[Laide Kuti]

At the official opening ceremony in the Lagos national stadium, contingents from 47 countries paraded before government officials visiting heads of state and a capacity crowd of 100.

[Marilyn Nance]

It was historic. It's like, I gotta be there.

[Jad Abumrad]

People walked in the way they do in the Olympics, with their flags and their signs.

[Marilyn Nance]

Yeah, Once I was looking at the Olympics on television and I was like, whoa, wait a minute. That's what we did.

[John Darten]

It was an event that crystallized a movement.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's journalist John Darten. He was the New York Times foreign correspondent based in Lagos at the time. And he covered Festa.

[John Darten]

It was a very important moment for Nigeria.

[Jad Abumrad]

He says it was sort of like Nigeria's coming out party. It was the most. Still is the most populous black nation on earth. It was 17 years after independence. They were ready to step out onto the world stage and say, we are here.

[John Darten]

I'm not an expert in colonialism, but I think it does erode a human mind. And I think it does have a kind of long lasting effect. A lot of African countries were born under this cloud of inferiority. Nigeria somehow shook a lot of that off in that period and was clearly its own country, run by itself, for itself, for better or for worse.

[Marilyn Nance]

There was a Festac song by Sonny Aday. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Nigeria. You are welcome. Something like that.

[Jad Abumrad]

It sounds like Festac was sort of like a. Like a halcyon moment.

[John Darten]

Yeah, they did have this oil money pouring in.

[Jad Abumrad]

Prices for oil were going up.

[John Darten]

There's fancy cars driving around.

[Marilyn Nance]

You are welcome.

[John Darten]

They thought, okay, we can feed the nation. We can become an international power. We're not lesser. We're not lesser.

[Marilyn Nance]

There was so much singing, dancing. Like, you'd be so exhausted. I'd come back to my flat and like, I gotta lay down. But then you'd hear drums. So you just like kind of get back up, you know, like, oh, I gotta go over there. Where did I hear that?

[Jad Abumrad]

What is this picture right here?

[Marilyn Nance]

I see this is the Chuck Davis dancers dancing outside in Festac village. And I remember one comment was like, wait a minute, they dance like us? I guess maybe Africans and thought that we'd be doing the boogaloo or the twists. I don't. I don't know.

[Jad Abumrad]

That must have been that. Something about that story kind of gives me the sense that it must have been like just this grand comparing of notes.

[Marilyn Nance]

Oh yeah, we'd only seen each other, I guess in movies or in books, magazines or something like that. So the Egyptians are looking at the Cameroonians and the Cameroonians are looking at the Senegalese, and the Senegalese are looking at the Americans. It was amazing. It was really like. And that was my whole take on. On Festac. The joy of it.

[Laide Kuti]

The joy of finding each other and being together.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay, so let's bring in Fela now.

[Ben Adair]

It so happens that you couldn't do Festak77 without involving the most well known artist in Nigeria.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Dotun Ayobade, a professor at Northwestern, one of our advisors.

[Ben Adair]

And so the government brings Fela on board and surprisingly Fela obliges. He actually goes to become part of the Planning Committee for SFestac77.

[Jad Abumrad]

So in walks Fela to the story and things start to go sideways real quick. And just to understand the conflict, it helps to put him in a little bit of context who he was at this moment in 1976. Let me tell you about that song I mentioned that inspired the name of this chapter. It's one of my favorite Fela records. Doesn't get a lot of attention. It's called Napoi, which literally translates from the Yoruba to mean things will collide. He of course makes it all about sexual, which is why I got banned from the radio. But setting the lyrics aside for a minute, just listen to the feel of it. There's a moment like 23 minutes in, Right here, The band is so tight and he's like floating, floating over them. Everybody has a year or two where it just. It all comes together. And for Fela, at least in my year, 1975, 76 were those years. And I don't just mean musically.

[Laide Kuti]

Tomorrow, next month, I'll be president of this country. I will be president of this country.

[ID (Young African Pioneers leader)]

They just lift him off his feet and they start hailing him Vela Black President. Vela Black President.

[Jad Abumrad]

He was seriously thinking about running for president.

[ID (Young African Pioneers leader)]

I was so proud to be part of that movement.

[Jad Abumrad]

He had the Young African Pioneers, this youth movement coalescing around him. I think about that when I hear this record which was also recorded in 1976. It's called Johnny Just Drop it's sort of a critique of Nigerians who are too enamored with Europe. But for me again, it's less about the lyrics and more just like the feel. It sounds like the entire commune is in the studio with him and the horn section. You can feel the energy. This is Fela at his most powerful, his most confident and important side note. 1976 is a very brief window where he actually gets along with the authorities. The military dictator at the time, General Murtala Muhammad was gesturing at some progressive ideas. He was saying some things Fellah liked. So Fellah was tentatively cool with the guy. So when they invite him to participate, surprisingly Fela obliges.

[Ben Adair]

He actually goes to become part of the Planning Committee for Festac 77.

[ID (Young African Pioneers leader)]

Fela was nominated to prepare Nigeria's participation in Festac.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's ID, who was 17 at the time. We heard his story in a previous episode along with Durow and Lemmy. He was the leader of the Young African Pioneers which was the heart of Fela's youth movement.

[ID (Young African Pioneers leader)]

The meeting was held at hotel in Kano.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's northern Nigeria, other side of the country from Lagos. And this hotel, very posh, VIP suites, chalets. Apparently it cost about $20 million to build in today's dollars.

[ID (Young African Pioneers leader)]

Fela invited us to accompany him, spent his own money, paid our hotel while the government, federal government, paid hotel for the others. And what did we see? A meeting of padi paddies and friends and friends. You know, even the chairman of the committee, you are so well appreciated. All over Africa, et cetera. They were just talking about little, little things. And then at a point Fela stood up. He said, but this is not why we are here.

[Jad Abumrad]

And then ID says Fela pulled out a document, a list of nine demands and read it aloud.

[ID (Young African Pioneers leader)]

We prepared this nine point program. Number one, the aim of the festival as a whole should be to redirect the thinking of the common man. Number two, specifically, the festival should attempt to re educate the common man in Nigeria and Africa about the role of colonization, African history and religion. Three, the festival should aim to rid the present generation of the imposed influence of foreign cultures.

[Jad Abumrad]

There were demands that the government should distribute history books written from a non colonial perspective. That the government should financially incentivize Nigerians to participate. Here's IDs fellow Yap member Duro with the basic if they wanted a change.

[Yenni Kuti]

In culture and development in Nigeria, they should build an institution. Not just celebration, they just want to.

[ID (Young African Pioneers leader)]

Do we want to come and celebrate.

[Yenni Kuti]

Fest, act and dance?

[Laide Kuti]

No, it is not about that we.

[Yenni Kuti]

Want to build a civilization that we can pass on to our children. To stop oppression, to stop slavery, to stop under development. You understand what I mean? So that was Fela's mind.

[ID (Young African Pioneers leader)]

He presented the plan and it was immediately rejected by the chairman saying that you are not here to give us idea of how what we should do in the festival. We already know what we are going to do for the festival.

[Jad Abumrad]

In truth, according to id, they didn't really actually invite him to give input. They wanted him, needed him to play at the festival. And they wanted to know how much that was going to cost.

[Ben Adair]

It wasn't a deliberative body. It was a body that was essentially put together to rubber stamp what had been decided.

[ID (Young African Pioneers leader)]

And Fela got angry, said I'm invited just because of my stature as a musician, not my stature as a thinker, as a politician. I resigned from this committee.

[Ben Adair]

So Fela pulled out of the first Act 77 committee.

[ID (Young African Pioneers leader)]

He walked out of the committee and.

[Ben Adair]

Becomes a vocal critic of Festac 77. So not only is he criticizing Festac 77 as a white elephant project, he also now has insider view. And so he becomes vocal about the kind of level of public embezzlement.

[Jad Abumrad]

He begins to give interviews saying these soldiers incompetent are basically enriching themselves off the Festec budget.

[ID (Young African Pioneers leader)]

They were all trying to make money out of sham. Fela was the only one from that gener that refused the temptation of money. It put the struggle before anything else.

[Jad Abumrad]

Adi and the Yap boys decide to go on a press offensive.

[ID (Young African Pioneers leader)]

This Napa program was published in YAP News.

[Jad Abumrad]

He says they wrote articles criticizing the government's traffic policies.

[John Darten]

Well, the traffic jams were legendary. They euphemistically called go slows. Right.

[Jad Abumrad]

But you didn't move at all during Festa. This was a huge issue for the government. They didn't want foreign visitors stuck for hours between venues.

[ID (Young African Pioneers leader)]

And what did they have as a solution?

[John Darten]

They started this campaign of military police around different intersections. If you did something wrong, they would go to your car, open the door.

[Jad Abumrad]

Pull you out and whip you, flog you like animals.

[ID (Young African Pioneers leader)]

We did not like this. We condemned it to the government had.

[John Darten]

Simultaneously a program for agricultural uplift called Feed the Nation. And fella called this Beat the Nation and made a thing of it.

[Ben Adair]

And so you have Nigeria having splashed millions of dollars building up massive infrastructure. We had the Festag village built to house the tens of thousands of visitors from all over the world. So the government had invested tons of money. Well, it just so happened that by the time visitors began rolling around coming into Lagos. Fela hatches this brilliant idea to host something called a counterfestak. Counterfestak was was a series of concerts at the shrine. The government had spent tons of money bringing in a list artists from all over the world. Right. Hugh Masekela, Miriam, Makeba, Gio, Berto, Jill. But none of those artists were interested in coming to Nigeria without coming to the legendary shrine.

[Jad Abumrad]

From the government's point of view, this has gotta be the most annoying thing they've ever experienced.

[Ben Adair]

And so they land and they do the official thing. They do the official proceedings. And then at night everybody descends on the shrine.

[Marilyn Nance]

We all knew about Phelan, so we all found our way to the shrine.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's photographer Marilyn Nance again. Do you remember Stevie Wonder visiting the shrine?

[Laide Kuti]

I saw him.

[ID (Young African Pioneers leader)]

He's not daughter. I remember I saw him in the shrine.

[Jad Abumrad]

Tell me about that moment.

[ID (Young African Pioneers leader)]

He was incredible. You had this packed crowd. He had one person in front of him and one person behind him that was guiding him through this to the stage where Fela presented him to the public.

[Jad Abumrad]

Stevie Wonder told the Nigerian newspaper the Daily Times. Words cannot express my joy at coming home to Nigeria. This visit is the fulfillment of a lifelong ambition.

[Ben Adair]

And of course during the counterfest that he's playing those songs. He's playing I like. He's playing all this kind of this. These songs that had traveled the world. These anti government songs that are traveled. He's playing them live. Playing Zombie life.

[John Darten]

Zombie in particular was an attack on the military journalist John Darton. Again, it's basically calling the military Zombies.

[Jad Abumrad]

If you want a deeper dive on Zombie previous chapter. But the gist is that this was a song that said that soldiers and police did not have minds of their own. And it was banned from the radio.

[John Darten]

You are not supposed to play it.

[Jad Abumrad]

But he played it every night during counterfest act.

[Ben Adair]

And also remember that there are soldiers in the audience who are there for entertainment. And they are also members of the state secret service in the audience.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, it's such a symbolic fuck you to the government. I mean in the purest form.

[Ben Adair]

In the purest, most refined form. And the government had paid for it. The government had funded.

[Jad Abumrad]

And there is one more ingredient to this whole situation. Remember how I said 1976 was a very brief moment where Fela got but along with the authorities. Because that General Murtal Muhammad was somewhat progressive. Well, right before Festac General Muhammad is deposed and killed in a coup. And in comes this new guy.

[Ben Adair]

A particular character emerges his name is Olusegwa Basanjo. But Olusegungwe Basanjo was born in Abel Kuta around the same time that Fela was born. So they were contemporaries. They attended schools not too far from one another. But he had the most fraught relationships. When Obasanjo comes to power, one of his major projects was Festac 77. The Nigerian National Arts Theatre will, among.

[Jad Abumrad]

Other things, occupy a pivotal position in.

[Ben Adair]

The forthcoming worldwide African Festival of Arts and Culture. So you then have the added dimension of two characters who go way back from the same village and are not fans of one another. And both have platforms to express their dislike or distaste of one another.

[Jad Abumrad]

The good old fashioned beef, straight up old beef.

[Ben Adair]

So it was this perfect, was a perfect storm.

[Marilyn Nance]

This was actually the last photograph that I made in Lagos.

[Jad Abumrad]

Can you describe the photograph?

[Marilyn Nance]

This is my last day in Lagos. I had just gotten a ticket to come back home. There's a car here and it's kind of look beat up. It's a taxi.

[Jad Abumrad]

It's a very simple picture of a car against a very ominous gray sky. And looking back on it now, she says the picture feels like a marker, like it's pointing at what's about to happen. Not even 24 hours later, the festival.

[Marilyn Nance]

Village was emptying out. I could feel the shift in the city. I could feel the. Oh, boy. It was like the end of this era of Pan African possibilities, maybe.

[Jad Abumrad]

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[Marilyn Nance]

It was like the end of this era of Pan African possibilities, maybe.

[Laide Kuti]

And there's a song that said, everybody run, run, run. Some people all don't call them brother. Police don't go away.

[Jad Abumrad]

For this part of the story, we have to turn to Fela's former wives, Laide Kuti, Chinyeri Smith and Loras Shosayan. Because they were there, they experienced it firsthand. Can you tell me about that day from your memory?

[Laide Kuti]

The day they burnt the house?

[Jad Abumrad]

The day they burned the house.

[Laide Kuti]

I was with Mama upstairs.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay? That's like that morning. She said she was on the second floor of Fela's compound and she was hanging out with Fela's mother.

[Laide Kuti]

We just finished eating. We were talking. Because when you sit down with Mama, you will enjoy all what she's telling you. So as we were talking, we heard a large noise at the gate. She stood up, she was looking out of the window and saw the people at the gate. She saw they are uniformed people and they were arguing with the gates man to open the gates for them to come in.

[Jad Abumrad]

As for why the soldiers were trying to get into the compound, there are different accounts.

[Ben Adair]

Just days after Festac 77, there was a minor infraction. Here's dotunes minor fracas between someone in Fela's commune and his soldier. There was a minor accident. I think someone was driving an Africa 70 bus or van or vehicle, had hit a soldier on a motorbike and didn't stop to. He didn't wait to get arrested. And so he escaped and escaped into Calakota Republic. And so the soldiers go to Calakota Republic to ask that the fellow be retrieved. That was the trigger.

[Laide Kuti]

So Mama now turned to the uniform boys talking from the window. Mama said they should just go, that they should forget about that driver that drove this car. They said, no, they demand for that boy. They must produce the boy. Fela was sleeping. So Fela now came up to his mother. Okay? They now started arguing with Fela that fella must open the gate and produce the boy. Fella said, you want me to produce somebody to you uniform people? You want to go and kill them? No. If fella should allow dabo, they will kill him. So Fela don't want them to kill the boy.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's Lara.

[Laide Kuti]

They wanted to force the gates to open. So when Fela saw that they were trying to force the gates open, he now told them to go and put on the lights.

[Jad Abumrad]

Lights, meaning electricity.

[Ben Adair]

Fela had electrified the fence.

[Laide Kuti]

The uniform boys saw that the thing was shocking, said, no, no, no, don't touch it, don't touch it. It's electrified.

[Ben Adair]

And right around this time, and this is an important piece of what then unfolds. Fela gets on the balcony, gets his saxophone and begins playing. Zombie.

[Jad Abumrad]

He plays it down at the soldiers. Yeah.

[Ben Adair]

This is one of the triggers for the event.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, my God. It's like a triple fuck you.

[Subway Takes Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Ben Adair]

And yet there was still no excuse for what they did.

[Jad Abumrad]

Of course. Yeah.

[Ben Adair]

So the soldiers retreat to the barracks.

[Laide Kuti]

They went back to Abalti barracks.

[Ben Adair]

A couple of hours later, Essentially, a battalion of soldiers returned to the commune.

[Laide Kuti]

As we were standing up there, we saw all of them marching.

[Ben Adair]

You would often hear them describe it.

[Laide Kuti]

As a thousand soldiers with their gun, everything. They were marching from the Abalti barracks. As we saw them, hey, we knew we are. We are doomed.

[Ben Adair]

When they got to the commune, soldiers, they communicated with the Nigerian Electric Power Authority. So the electric guys cut off electricity to the area.

[Jad Abumrad]

So they cut the power?

[Laide Kuti]

Yes, they cut the power so that.

[Ben Adair]

They could gain access to the commune.

[Yenni Kuti]

Blackouts everywhere.

[Jad Abumrad]

Dark.

[Ben Adair]

And so when that happens, what does Fela do? They then put on a generator to power the fence. And the soldiers still can't gain access to the commune. So what they do is they shoot at the generator and it explodes.

[Laide Kuti]

They use ax axe to break the gate. They brought in two jerry cans of petrol as they got in there. The next site was Obasanjo.

[Jad Abumrad]

Laitya says she looked out the window and saw Obasanjo himself. Head of state, fellas, nemesis there with the troops.

[Laide Kuti]

Yes, Obasanjo was there physically. I saw him. That was when Obasanjo just did like this.

[Jad Abumrad]

She says he drew his hand across.

[Laide Kuti]

His throat from far we were looking at him that they should burn the place immediately. He did like that. They just opened the jerry can and they started pouring on all the cars and put fire. That was when they gained the entrance.

[Ben Adair]

To enter and once again, access to the community was just mayhem. It was just. It was just pure, pure mayhem. The level of brutality is hard to describe.

[Jad Abumrad]

According to Lakuti and Chinieri Smith, the soldiers stormed up to the second floor, poured gasoline everywhere, and then grabbed Fela's mother by the hair.

[Laide Kuti]

They threw that woman out of window.

[Jad Abumrad]

And threw her out of the second floor window.

[Laide Kuti]

For nothing. Immediately, the true mama, they held Fela.

[Jad Abumrad]

And Beko, Fela's brother.

[Laide Kuti]

They started beating them. It was under Fela's leg that me I passed. I ran downstairs. By the time I would get downstairs, I went inside my room. I picked all my gold. I have a lot of gold. I picked all my golds, put them inside my trousers. I saw the whole parlor was burned, was burning. The smoke was too much. I couldn't pass there. I had to run back. I ran inside Fela's room. When I ran inside Fela's room, Fela had a big freezer inside the room. I just opened it and put myself inside the freezer.

[Jad Abumrad]

Laetice, as she climbed in, closed the door after her. Inside the freezer she heard screams, glass breaking, appliances crashing to the floor, soldiers cursing, the sounds of fire, the sounds of batons hitting flesh. After a few minutes, she's not sure how long, the door swings open and she sees the face of a soldier.

[Laide Kuti]

He said, you are there. It's okay. That big bottle, he just broke it on the wall. Then he brought it. He started stabbing my head. Look at all my head. If you look very well, you will see all the marks. I had 16 stitches on my head.

[Yenni Kuti]

He was.

[Jad Abumrad]

He was stabbing you with a broken bottle?

[Laide Kuti]

Yes. He will put it, Remove it. Put it, remove it.

[Yenni Kuti]

They beat me.

[Laide Kuti]

They beat hell out of me. The slap me. I've had my eyes. I've had my eyes.

[Jad Abumrad]

What happened to your eye?

[Laide Kuti]

That man just called me. Just take one wool.

[Jad Abumrad]

Lara lost one of her eyes that day and now has a glass eye. She says a soldier basically bashed her in the eye with a gun. But she also pointed between her legs.

[Laide Kuti]

They shook me here.

[Jad Abumrad]

They shot you there?

[Yenni Kuti]

Yes, with Batu.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh God, I thought I would die.

[Ben Adair]

There's a conventional way of narrating this story, and it's that Ofela was totally beaten and Ofella was brutalized and his livelihood essentially was destroyed. And that all of that is true. But to sustain that argument is to miss a key part of the invasion. That the invasion was designed to destroy the commune at its very core. And one of the ways that they conceived of doing it is to rape the women in the commune. Sexual violence was front and center in the invasion.

[Jad Abumrad]

Dotun says the military was taking aim at one of Fela's core identity traits. Right. He portrayed himself as a playboy. Look at all these women I have. Going after the women was their way of trying to humiliate him. And also, more than that, if his mother was able to harness the spiritual energy of all those market women to overthrow a king. Here the army was directly attacking the women to undermine their power and fill.

[Yenni Kuti]

Us too, the burning of the house, which was very traumatic for all of us.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Yanni Kuti, Fela's oldest daughter. She was 16 at the time.

[Yenni Kuti]

I witnessed after I saw the house after it took us about three hours. It was about 8, 8, 9 when we got to Fela's area and blackout everywhere. Dark people were walking with their hands up in the air like this. Soldiers were there guarding everybody. You get this ominous feeling, what, what, what? Till we drove right directly in front of Ella's house.

[ID (Young African Pioneers leader)]

Hey.

[Yenni Kuti]

The sights that we saw, we were not prepared to see in our wildest imagination, did not prepare us for what we saw. What did you see?

[Jad Abumrad]

Can you describe it?

[Yenni Kuti]

The house was burnt. It was gone. It was.

[Laide Kuti]

Ah.

[Yenni Kuti]

My mother just started to scream, they've killed them, They've killed them.

[Subway Takes Podcast Host]

Ah.

[Yenni Kuti]

They've killed ah. My mother started to scream.

[Laide Kuti]

Ah.

[Yenni Kuti]

My uncle started telling Femi to. Because Femi was sitting in front. Get down, Femi, get down. They must be looking for fellas. People get down. Because the soldiers were patrolling, patrolling. We drove past. Ah. All I could hear was my mom screaming. I mean for me to still cry at 63 was a terrible thing. You know, a fellow said, you know, while he was in hospital.

[Laide Kuti]

He would.

[Yenni Kuti]

Dream that his house was still there. He would wake up and dream that because they burnt everything during the armed forces, remember, they always say we should wear this armed forces remembrance on our chests. I can't. I can't because my own memory of the armed forces was brutal. Brutal.

[ID (Young African Pioneers leader)]

You scaled the sheer cliff face, battling.

[Ben Adair]

Frostbite, running low on oxygen. The wind pierced your and every inch was agony.

[ID (Young African Pioneers leader)]

You reached heights no other human had.

[Jad Abumrad]

Before.

[ID (Young African Pioneers leader)]

While getting nowhere at airport security. There's more to imagine when you listen.

[Ben Adair]

Discover best selling action titles on audible.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Felikuti Fearno Man. When we spoke to Yeni Fellah's oldest daughter about the day the government burned down his compound, she told us that it took them a week to track down Fela and his mother, her grandmother, because everybody in the house that day had ended up in different military hospitals.

[Yenni Kuti]

I can't even really remember seeing him in hospital. I probably did, but I just can't remember.

[Jad Abumrad]

Apparently he was in casts and he told his autobiographer, Carlos Moore, that during the raid he could hear his bones breaking from the blows. What about her? When you saw your grandmother in the hospital, do you remember that?

[Yenni Kuti]

I remember seeing her, but it's very. I know she was. She had a casts on her leg. She wasn't talking well, she was very disoriented, you know, she. I don't think. She was never herself again after that. She died a year later, almost exactly a year later. Can you get me some tissue, please?

[Laide Kuti]

In my room.

[Jad Abumrad]

Would you like some water?

[Marilyn Nance]

No, I'm okay for now.

[Jad Abumrad]

After a break, we started talking about the crowds that had gathered that day. Because just for context, outside, tens of thousands of people had watched the entire situation unfold. Here's how Felad himself described that moment years later. This is one of the only interviews that we're aware of where he actually discusses what happened that day in any detail.

[Fela Kuti]

If you see a thousand soldiers running a house in Lagos, a thousand soldiers running a house, and this really draws a lot of crowd. There were about 60,000 people watching. This scene was like a big theater show. People standing on the highway. Cars had to stop. Big, go slow. No, cars couldn't move, move. So people could really see that I was being attacked without attacking anybody.

[Jad Abumrad]

You're saying there are people lining all there? So they were really close?

[Yenni Kuti]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

When we were in Lagos, Duro, one of fellas, yap boys, pointed out that the crowd had gathered really only about 50ft from the house.

[Yenni Kuti]

Exactly where that tree is is Fella's house.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's right. The Kalakuda was right here.

[Laide Kuti]

Right here.

[Jad Abumrad]

Apparently during the burning. This is just before they shut off the electricity. Fella had tried to set up a mic and speakers to talk to the crowd, to explain to them that what was happening was not his fault and to urge them to come to his defense. But he hadn't been able to get it set up in time. Do you think he felt abandoned? That no one. No one stepped in?

[Yenni Kuti]

Definitely. Definitely. At that point, he was very sure that they wouldn't allow what happened. But nobody lifted a finger. Nobody lifted a finger.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yenny suggested that he probably expected that what happened with his mother would happen there, that sea of women that surrounded her. He expected all of those 60,000 people to surround him and then rise up. But that's not what happened. They just watched. And as Yenny talked about it, her mood noticeably shifted.

[Yenni Kuti]

My question is, what are you doing? What will you do? Is it only the Kutis that must fight? Is it only you want to give the Kutis the whole. The responsibility? And when anything happens to them, you say, these Kuti people say, nobody's going to do anything. There's some TED Talks or something. Then they will go to their flat in Canada or their flat in London. Stay here. Let's fight it. Together. Fella stayed here. Fella never left here. We the Kuchis have never left here. We are here inside these fight.

[Jad Abumrad]

I hear that conversation now and I. I don't know. Like what did Fela think was going to happen? The women that gathered around his mother, they'd been preparing for that battle. They had chosen the battle. They had gone through that I'm going to borrow a term from the civil rights movement, process of self purification, meaning they had prepared their minds for the possibility of violence. They were ready here. This was just people watching. To expect them to rush to your defense when there are thousands of soldiers with guns is maybe asking more of people than they could possibly give. Then again, ID is convinced that had this happened in the age of social media, Fela could have talked directly to his supporters and those that were ready would have stepped forward in the thousands. But I just don't know. In the days after the burning, several dozen members of Fellah's compound would have to go to court for damage to one Nigerian army motorcycle. Many of them were young women. In some reports, the women had to stand in front of the magistrate half naked. Fela, true to form, would tell the story of the burning in graphic detail in his song Unknown Soldier. One Last thought. The burning of Calcutta seems to be an inflection point not just for Fella, but for the country. We started with a flawed but beautiful cultural festival that was put on by a dictatorial regime awash in oil money. Well, just after the burning, while the smoke was still in the air, so to speak, oil markets collapsed, inflation skyrocketed, imports dried up. No more fancy cars, cheap red wine. One person we spoke with told us that suddenly the rice that her family bought at the store had stones in it and her and her siblings had to sit and pick out the stones every day. It was now impossible to ignore the problems that Fyla had been railing about and that he would continue to, or try to, even while homeless. And now on his own. This has been a Higher Ground and Audible Original Produced by Audible Higher Ground Audio Western sound and talk House 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 Fear. 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 Mutuele. Ruby Heron Walsh was lead producer and researcher. Our producers were Fefe Odudu, and Oluakemi Aladdiosui. Ben Adair was our editor with editing help Carla Murthy. Consulting producers were Bolu Babalola, Dosha Ayubade, Hanif Abdurraqib, Michael Veal, Moses Ochunu and Judith Byfield. Big gratitude to Fouad Lual, Chika Ihirem Moore and Esther Eze from Archive Ng that's a R C H I V I dot ng they created an archive of Nigerian newspapers for us. Thank you to Duro Ikujenyo and his band Age of Aquarius. Search up Duro and the Age of Aquarius to hear his new record which is out now. Huge thanks to ID for all of his research and connections and help with these stories. Our fact checker was Jamilah Wilkinson. Alex McInnis was the mix engineer. Also special thanks to Knitting Factory Records and BMG to the Kuti Family, Yenni, Femi Shayun and Maday to Melissa o' Donnell to Inside Projects, 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 Giazza Copyright 2025 by Higher Ground Audio, LLC Sound Recording Copyright 2025 by Higher Ground Audio, L.L.C.

[Josh Modell]

Hey music fans, this is Josh Modell, host of the Talkhouse Podcast. Each week we pair up musicians, filmmakers and other creative minds for illuminating one on one conversations that touch on everything from the mechanics of music making to their favorite candy to their social and emotional well being. You never know where these chats are going to go, but it's always somewhere these artists haven't gone before. Listener favorites from the past few seasons include Jeff Tweedy with Abby Jacobson, Guillermo Del Toro with William Friedkin and Kim Deal with Courtney Barnett. Every week we've got a new pairing, so go ahead and subscribe to the Talkhouse Podcast on your favorite platform today.

[Subway Takes Podcast Host]

So what's your take? That's the million dollar question on the just launched Subway Takes podcast. It's the same show you know and love, but now bigger and better. And yeah, it's available on all major podcast platforms. Hit subscribe to catch long form interviews with awesome guests like Cate Blanchett, John C. Reilly, Jane Goodall, Hasan Minhaj and more. Each week you'll also hear guests go all in, defending their wildest takes and clapping back at the haters. Subway Takes now streaming everywhere. Subscribe and don't miss a beat.