Fela’s Culture
Fela Kuti’s culture was an Pan-African super star, anti-military dictatorship activist, and social maverick, and he even created his own socialist party. Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was one of the brightest stars of the Nigerian and international music scene in the 1970s and 1980s. Fela won a reputation for openly smoking marijuana, sleeping with large numbers of women, and dressing only in his underpants, but his influence on contemporary music cannot be over-estimated. Fela had the groove sense of James Brown and Prince’s poise as an arranger; he was as charismatic as Bob Marley, as popular as any of those artists at their peak. Most of all, the man who called himself ‘the chief priest’ was one of the music world’s most skilled agitators. His songs, which could stretch over an hour, were filled with passionate chants about military corruption and social inequality.