Fela Anikulapo-Kuti

Book excerpt: Fela Anikulapo Kuti was the Afrobeat music maestro whose life and time provide the lens through which we can outline the postcolonial trajectory of the Nigerian state as well as the dynamics of most other African states. Through the Afrobeat music, Fela did not only challenge consecutive governments in Nigeria, but his rebellious Afrobeat lyrics facilitate a philosophical subtext that enriches the more intellectual Afrocentric discourses. Afrobeat and the philosophy of blackism that Fela enunciated place him right beside Malcolm X, Kwame Nkrumah, Marcus Garvey, and all the others who champion a black and African mode of being in the world. This book traces the emergence of Fela on the music scene, the cultural and political backgrounds that made Afrobeat possible, and the philosophical elements that not only contributed to the formation of Fela's blackism, but what constitutes Fela's philosophical sensibility too.