Fela! (edited to include Spring Awakening)

Fela Kuti was a pioneer of the afrobeat musical genre. This type of music was invented by blending together American jazz, pop, and funk and West African highlife music. In addition to being a multi-instrumentalist and composer of several albums for a career that spanned three decades, he was also a prominent political figure. He was first politically inspired by (and later became a central symbolic figure of) the Black Power movement. He was also a supporter anti-colonialism and pan-Africanism, pushing for a single, united, republican African nation. He tried several times to run for the position for President of Nigeria but was never allowed to because of his socialist political views, which often had him arrested in Nigeria and other African countries.

A musical based on Kuti's life entitled Fela! opened on Broadway this past October. Occasional hip-hopper Will Smith, Jada Pinkett-Smith, and the inarguable reigning king of hip-hop Jay-Z are all producing the musical. "I think that the show had something in it, y'know, there's something in it that it just needed to be recognized by people, but y'know the show stands on it's own. It's really a struggle about pain and passion and inspiration," said Jay-Z.

Below, a live performance by the actual Fela Kuti.



And here, a clip from the musical based on his life.



More information about the Broadway musical can be found on their official website.

27 January 2010 EDIT

After our class discussion today pertaining to ideologies (fighting against them vs. submitting to them) I thought it would be interesting to note that Fela! is housed in the Eugene O'Neill theatre, which also recently housed the winner of the 2007 Tony Award for Best Musical, Spring Awakening. Spring Awakening, based on Franklin Wedekind's play by the same name, is the story of adolescents in 19th century Germany who are sheltered from any knowledge other than that which can be found in the Bible. This structure of parents dominating the subordinate children is shaken when one teen, Melchior Gabor, a professed atheist, teaches his peers about the science behind reproduction and enlightens the boys and girls as to the meaning behind their sexual attraction to one another. Here are two musicals, Fela! and Spring Awakening, with very different settings, characters, and issues, but both of them are directly addressing the problem with submitting oneself entirely to authority.

Below, Spring Awakening's Tony performance, a montage of a few of the more popular songs in the show.