Afrobeat (Lagos)
Afrobeat was forged in Lagos at the turn of the 1970s, when Fela Kuti and drummer Tony Allen welded Yoruba highlife and jùjú to American funk, jazz horns, and the call-and-response of West African ritual. Wikidata dates the genre to the 1970s and ties it directly to Fela, while crediting the American singer-activist Sandra Izsadore with sharpening his Black Power consciousness during a 1969 stay in Los Angeles. From the Kalakuta Republic compound and the Shrine nightclub, the band Africa 70 stretched single grooves past twenty minutes and aimed them squarely at Nigeria's military rulers. The reckoning came in February 1977, when roughly a thousand soldiers burned Kalakuta to the ground — an assault provoked by the previous year's album, Zombie.
The record
People & groups9
- Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti1 source
1900 · Lagos
Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, mother of Fela Kuti, was a pioneering Nigerian educator, suffragist, and anti-colonial campaigner long before her son's fame.
- Lekan Animashaun1 source
1936 · Lagos
Lekan Animashaun was the long-serving baritone saxophonist and bandleader of Fela Kuti's groups, one of the most durable figures in the afrobeat horn section.
- Fela Kuti2 sources
1938 · Lagos
Born in Abeokuta in 1938 and trained in London, Fela Kuti returned to Lagos to invent afrobeat — a fusion of Yoruba musical idiom, highlife, and American funk and jazz that he turned into a weapon against Nigeria's military governments.
- Ginger Baker2 sources
1939 · Lagos
Ginger Baker, the British drummer of Cream, became one of afrobeat's most visible outside champions after he settled in Lagos and built a recording studio there in the early 1970s.
- Tony Allen2 sources
1940 · Lagos
Tony Allen was the drummer of Africa 70 and, by common account, its musical director — the rhythmic mind without whom afrobeat is hard to imagine.
- Roy Ayers1 source
1940 · Lagos
Roy Ayers, the American vibraphonist and jazz-funk pioneer, was by widely-documented account drawn into Fela Kuti's orbit, touring Nigeria and recording with him at the end of the 1970s.
- Sandra Izsadore2 sources
1969 · Lagos
Sandra Izsadore was the American singer and Black Power activist who, during Fela Kuti's 1969 stay in Los Angeles, introduced him to the writings and politics of the African-American freedom struggle.
- Africa 702 sources
1970 · Lagos
Africa 70 was the large Lagos ensemble that gave afrobeat its body — a wall of horns, layered guitars, and percussion anchored by Tony Allen's drumming, all directed by Fela Kuti.
- Igo Chico1 source
1971 · Lagos
Igo Chico was the Nigerian tenor saxophonist who took the featured solo voice in Africa 70 during the early 1970s, his playing prominent on the band's first wave of afrobeat albums.
Works & releases8
- Why Black Man Dey Suffer (1971)2 sources
1971 · Lagos
Released in 1971 and credited to Fela, Africa 70, and Ginger Baker, Why Black Man Dey Suffer is an early afrobeat statement that turns the genre's grooves toward questions of race, history, and oppression.
- Roforofo Fight (1972)2 sources
1972 · Lagos
Roforofo Fight, released in 1972 by Fela Ransome Kuti and Africa 70, is one of the era's defining afrobeat albums, its extended grooves driven by Tony Allen's drumming and a thick horn section.
- Shakara (1972)1 source
1972 · Lagos
Shakara, released in 1972 by Fela Ransome-Kuti and Africa 70, pairs a satirical portrait of male bravado with a withering look at social pretension across two long tracks.
- Gentleman (1973)1 source
1973 · Lagos
Gentleman, released in 1973 by Fela Ransome Kuti and Afrika 70, is a manifesto against colonial mimicry, mocking the African who suffocates in a European suit instead of dressing as himself.
- Jealousy (1975) — Tony Allen1 source
1975 · Lagos
Jealousy, released in 1975 under Tony Allen's own name with Africa 70 backing, was the first in a series of solo albums in which the drummer stepped forward as a leader within the afrobeat machine.
- Expensive Shit (1975)2 sources
1975 · Lagos
Expensive Shit, released in 1975 and credited to Fela on the cited sources, takes its title from a notorious episode, widely recounted, in which police are said to have tried to use a planted joint to jail him.
- Zombie (1976)1 source
1976 · Lagos
Zombie, released in 1976 by Fela and Afrika 70, likens Nigerian soldiers to mindless automata who only move on command — a ridicule so direct it became a national rallying cry.
- Sorrow Tears and Blood (1977)2 sources
1977 · Lagos
Sorrow Tears and Blood, released in 1977 by Fela and Afrika 70, surveys a world cowed by state violence, its refrain naming the residue that armed power leaves behind.
Events5
1969 · Lagos
During a 1969 American tour, Fela Kuti spent months in Los Angeles where he met Sandra Izsadore, who immersed him in Black Power literature and the politics of the African-American freedom movement.
- Formation of Africa 702 sources
1970 · Lagos
Around 1970, returning to Lagos with a sharpened political voice, Fela Kuti reorganized his band and renamed it Africa 70, the lineup that would define the afrobeat decade.
1974 · Lagos
In 1974 Fela Kuti fenced off his Lagos compound and declared it the Kalakuta Republic, an independent territory that recognized no authority of the Nigerian government.
- The "Expensive Shit" Police Episode2 sources
1975 · Lagos
By widely-told account, a clash with the Lagos police saw officers try to frame Fela Kuti with a planted joint, which he is said to have swallowed to deny them their evidence.
- Army Raid on Kalakuta Republic2 sources
1977-02 · Lagos
In February 1977 Nigerian soldiers stormed and burned the Kalakuta Republic to the ground, destroying Fela Kuti's home, studio, and master tapes.
Venues2
- The Shrine2 sources
1972 · Lagos
The Shrine was Fela Kuti's Lagos nightclub and ritual stage, the venue most associated with Africa 70's residencies and the place where afrobeat met its devoted audience.
- Kalakuta Republic1 source
1974 · Lagos
The Kalakuta Republic was Fela Kuti's fenced communal compound in Lagos, declared in 1974 as an independent republic in open defiance of the Nigerian state.