Dr Wolfgang Bender, the man who ‘brought Kuti to Nairobi’, addresses members of the press and music fraternity in Kenya

The concert was anything but boring. Shirtless, Fela Anikulapo Kuti strutted across the stage, occasionally substituting the microphone for the saxophone and drums. But all the time singing, telling stories or talking. The iconoclastic Nigerian music genius had come to Nairobi.

Condemning corruption, mismanagement, election rigging, unemployment, lack of electricity, exploitation, and cultural betrayal, the man led his Egyptian 80 Band in singing deceptively simple but symbolic lyrics

He went on to explain why his songs appear like a catalogue of nothing good: “I sing about everything I see. I see nothing good to sing about.” He then called Nigerian President-Shehu Shagari-‘a thief’ as he wound up with, “And that is the end of my song.” And most people at the concert on this June 3, 2004 evening at Goethe-Institut auditorium appeared to have been seeing Kuti for the first time. They craned their necks, looking at him intently, as if afraid to miss a move made by him.

Goethe-Institut, which in the 1990s had been the leading centre for live performances in Nairobi, had returned to life with the coming of the Nigerian whose Yoruba names not only mean a man born to greatness (Fela), who will never die (Kuti), but one who also holds death in his pocket (Anikulapo). Like a phoenix that rises from its ashes, Goethe-Institut had resurrected with music videos and discussions on African music and focussed on stars like Kuti and Congolese Papa Wemba. This was how Nairobi residents came to see Kuti seven years after his death in 1997.

Kuti’s video, 'Teacher don’t teach me nonsense', a 1984 production by BBC, not only shows how Kuti brings music into politics but also tells the story of his almost never-ending struggle against authorities to retain his position as the musical conscience of independent Africa. The video, recorded in concert at Glastonbury in Britain, is interspersed with interviews, music and other material from Nigeria.

Kuti, whose contention was that cultural consciousness should be the teacher of all African societies, went on to found Afrobeat, a fusion of African music with Jazz. Could this have sprung from a rebellion against his clergy father who had forbidden the family from using the vernacular at home or from identifying with anything cultural?

Saying that everyone in the family of the Rev Ransome Kuti was expected to use English, Kuti clarifies that Teacher don’t teach me nonsense should not be construed to mean he has a bone to grind with ‘teachers’ but that he is just using the term to clarify his thesis on culture. Kuti explains that a teacher is revered in Africa and that he used ‘teacher’ symbolically in a continent in which election are rigged. Although people don’t vote, politicians still get landslide votes. After a visit to the United States in 1969 where he met Sandra Isidore who advised him against aping American music, Kuti had returned home in 1970 to embark on his own unique brand of music.

Singing in Pidgin English, Kuti’s message was understood and appreciated by all Nigerians across the ethnic and tribal divide. Besides satirising the ruling class, Kuti released more than 40 albums before his death on August 2, 1997 that would spare nobody-military dictatorship, church, women, former colonial powers--from Kuti’s criticism. Although he had studied music at a Western college and played hi life, Kuti was presented as a person who had never been content with what he played. He thus had experimented with deceptively simple but powerful lyrics in the street language that everyone understood.

He said he used ‘broken English’ to reach everyone. Fighting against injustice, Kuti came out as a man who continually fought what he referred to as ‘colonial mentality.’ He was bent on fighting to emancipate Nigerians from ‘second slavery’ from the black masters who had succeeded the British colonialists in Nigeria after ‘independence.’

Besides the role of the musician and music critic, what came out of this film show and discussions were dilemmas like creativity versus responsibility and art versus political activism. Can they ever go together?

Some people described Kuti as the social conscience of Nigeria. Perhaps the only misgivings registered about this iconoclastic music genius was on his perceived sexual promiscuity, rebellion against his father’s wish for him to become a medical doctor, and on his male chauvinism that had made him refer to women as mattresses for men and criticise ‘modern’ women for what he termed a refusal to cook and wash for men because they considered themselves modern.

Fela Ransome Kuti was born in 1938 in Abeoukuta, Nigeria. His father, the Reverend Ransome Kuti, sent him to study medicine in England in 1958 but he instead enrolled in music at London’s Trinity College without his father’s knowledge. When the father learnt of this, it is said, he never spoke to him till his death. Although his music has an unmistakable jazzy ring to it, it is also unmistakably African-Afrobeat that he founded.

Kuti is said to have married all 27 female members of his band in one ceremony in 1978, apparently to bring honour to them as African women can only find honour in marriage.

This apparent chauvinistic view, coupled with lyrics of some of his songs, singles Kuti out for criticism by gender activists. For instance, they take issue with him over Lady that is said to be ridiculing the woman who thinks she is too modern and cannot cook or wash for a man. Mattress refers to women as objects for a man’s entertainment. But then Kuti’s sharp tongue spared no one. Not even the military top brass or the clergy. For instance, Shuffering and shmiling and VIP-Vagabonds in Power heap sarcasm on the church and politicians, respectively. Yelow Fever condemns Africans who bleach their skins in order to look like white people.

Kuti is said to have loved marijuana and this, coupled with his perceived promiscuous lifestyle, targets him for criticism as not having been a good role model for the youth. And critics appear vindicated as Kuti, the musician who bashed misrule, corruption, mismanagement and human rights abuses in Nigeria and Africa is said to have died of an AIDS-related illness springing from his alleged promiscuity. Kuti may have been the only musician who refused to sing the praises of the ruling class. He had instead used music as a weapon for championing social changes in Nigeria and Africa.

Also screened was New clothes, New equipment, a 50-minute film on Papa Wemba (born Shungu Jules Wembadio). Born in 1949 in Kasai province, Wemba was a founder member of Zaiko Langa Langa in 1969. He left the band in 1974 to found Viva la Musica in 1976. Perhaps the only positive thing about Wemba was his rebellion against Mobutu’s ‘national dress’ craze. He went on to don the most expensive and trendy Western clothes made in Milan, Paris, and New York.

During discussions, participants raised mixed feelings on Papa Wemba whom they considered a great musician but a poor role model. That despite the platform he had as a high profile musician, he had failed to speak against political excesses during Joseph Desire Mobutu’s regime that impoverished the Central African nation. He had instead chosen to live lavishly, dressing in the latest styles and spending time with numerous women with whom he fathered many offspring. He appeared a bad example compared to the king of Afrobeat, Kuti, who had used music as a weapon for liberation.

Margaretta wa Gacheru, Elizabeth Nasubo, Dr Odhiambo Makanyengo, William Umbima

The video shows, facilitated by Dr Wolfgang Bender, head of African Music Archive at the University of Mainz in Germany, proved quite enlightening. Dr Bender, a visiting professor at the Department of African Music and Ethnomusicology at Kenyatta University, had begun his African music enlightening sessions with a round table discussion with journalists on May 26.

In his introductory remarks, Prof Bender had stressed the importance of nations maintaining repositories of heritage as music archives. Expressing satisfaction that former British nations like Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and Sierra Leone had done well in establishing music archives, Dr Bender noted that it was sad that many countries had no archives for their own ‘intangible heritage’ (music). Saying he had begun collecting African pop music (Kuti and Prince Nico Mbarga’s in the 1960s) while a university exchange student in Nigeria, Bender said he had gone on to archive music from all over Africa (Mali, Mozambique, Madagascar, Somalia, Swaziland, South Africa, Nigeria, Sierra Leone) and published a book on it-Sweet Mother: Music of Africa-in 2000.

The first African music to be recorded on the latest technology in Germany, Dr Bender said, was Ethiopian and that it was recorded in 1908. In the 1930s, the scholar said, Zanzibari Siti Bint Saad had sold more than 70000 Taarab records. In the ensuing discussion, it was noted that although the emergence of Frequency Modulation (FM) radio stations had injected optimism in local music across Africa, the non-implementation of copyright issues and non-payment of royalties to musicians was an impediment to the development of local music. It was also observed that the push of certain music genres by foreign stations like Radio France International would work against authentic local music as it does other aspects of art.

Among topics tackled in detail were the dilemmas of music critics in encouraging musical creativity, and how journalists envisage their work in the overall African music perspective. Participants-who also included music producer Tabu Osusa of the Nairobi City Ensemble, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation DJ John Obong’o Jr, Metro Radio presenter Anne Lemaiyan-also examined the emergence of hip hop among young Africans across the continent. While some participants felt this was a ‘sell out’ trend attributed to ‘globalisation’, others felt it was an inevitable cultural trend that no one could stop.

Among the representatives of the media, music fraternity, academicians and researchers, Department of Culture, Kenya National Library Services, Kenya National Archives, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Kenya), International Centre for Research on Agro-Forestry on how to begin archiving Kenyan sounds in his last meeting included Nation Newspapers’ writer Margaretta wa Gacheru, Dr Odhiambo Makanyengo of the Armed Forces Hospital, Dr Beatrice A Digolo of Kenyatta University, Music Copyright Society of Kenya’s Jennifer Shamalla, ArtMatters.Info publisher Ogova Ondego, and Department of Culture’s Elizabeth Nasubo

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