Fela Kuti Advice ?

JohnnyCashFan

JohnnyCashFan

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What is a good starting point for Fela Kuti's music ? Keeping in mind a good sonic experience as well (if that is realistic ). From some quick research I thought The Best Of The Black President but wanted to check in here. If there is a thread to post this too let me know and I can delete/post. Thanks!
 
Expensive Shit and Zombie are the two most people will cite - and for good reason, as they're both superb. Open & Close, Afrodisiac, Unknown Soldier, Gentleman, Shakara, Why Black Man Dey Suffer (w/ Ginger Baker accompanying Tony Allen on drums) are all more choice selections.

The best place to start is to just start...
 
Too Many Diaper Babies said:
Expensive Shit and Zombie are the two most people will cite - and for good reason, as they're both superb. Open & Close, Afrodisiac, Unknown Soldier, Gentleman, Shakara, Why Black Man Dey Suffer (w/ Ginger Baker accompanying Tony Allen on drums) are all more choice selections.

The best place to start is to just start...
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Yep I’d say start with Zombie and Expensive Shit and then go from there. Everything he did is worth a listen. I haven’t heard anything less that good either.
 
I took an entire college course on Fela! You’re in for a treat, JCF! Great recommendations here, not much to add music-wise, but since you asked about sonics, I will say that the currently available Knitting Factory reissues are just okay. If you’re good with streaming, that might be your move.
 
D Jilla said:
I took an entire college course on Fela! You’re in for a treat, JCF! Great recommendations here, not much to add music-wise, but since you asked about sonics, I will say that the currently available Knitting Factory reissues are just okay. If you’re good with streaming, that might be your move.
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Second KF. I wasn't impressed. But I did get a great collection of CDs they released
 
JohnnyCashFan said:
What is a good starting point for Fela Kuti's music ? Keeping in mind a good sonic experience as well (if that is realistic ). From some quick research I thought The Best Of The Black President but wanted to check in here. If there is a thread to post this too let me know and I can delete/post. Thanks!
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the two best-of albums, best best of black president and best best of black president 2 are absolutely fantastic starting places.

Albums: zombie, expensive shit, shuffering & shmiling. This last one has my absolute favorite fela song and groove and the proto-rap when he starts "singing" in pseudo-latin and mumbling in fake arabic is probably my favorite thing ever. next best is maybe "trouble sleep yanga wake am". both of which have themes that are still valid today.

check out the red hot and fela tribute album too, it's also a banger
 
MikeH said:
I'm a big fan of the live record he did with Ginger Baker (I think the reissue might be one of the PBC titles?) And I really like Shakara too. Hard to go wrong as @Poly-Rythmo said.
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wmeugene said:
I really like Live with Ginger Baker as a start, but would also second the recommendations of Zombie and Expensive Shit
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@JohnnyCashFan you might be interested to know that Ginger Baker started out as a jazz drummer on the British jazz scene. He was actually part of Mike Taylor's very early group but was let go because his playing was too loud. Mike Taylor actually wrote several compositions for Cream's 'Wheels of Fire' but didn't live to see the album released to the great success that it achieved. He would have gone from penniless to pretty well off from the royalties but committed suicide before it was released.

Anyway, just thought you might find the connection interesting. Could be a good starting place knowing you enjoy jazz.
 
Selaws said:
@JohnnyCashFan you might be interested to know that Ginger Baker started out as a jazz drummer on the British jazz scene. He was actually part of Mike Taylor's very early group but was let go because his playing was too loud. Mike Taylor actually wrote several compositions for Cream's 'Wheels of Fire' but didn't live to see the album released to the great success that it achieved. He would have gone from penniless to pretty well off from the royalties but committed suicide before it was released.

Anyway, just thought you might find the connection interesting. Could be a good starting place knowing you enjoy jazz.
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Have you seen the documentary "Beware Mr Baker" ? He briefly mentions quitting cream, loading a jeep and driving across Africa to go play with fela.

Quite possibly one of my favorite video clips is Clapton and Baker just shitting on Bonham and moon:

 
yukbon said:
Have you seen the documentary "Beware Mr Baker" ? He briefly mentions quitting cream, loading a jeep and driving across Africa to go play with fela.

Quite possibly one of my favorite video clips is Clapton and Baker just shitting on Bonham and moon:

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I haven’t but will check this out, thanks for sharing!
 
I‘m a pretty big Fela fan. Haven’t upgraded them all to LP but I picked up all the CD sets from the Fela/Knitting Factory site when they were released 10 years ago.

I’d say start with these:
Live With Ginger Baker
Expensive Shit
Afrodisiac
Coffin For Head of State or Original Sufferhead
No Agreement
Alagbon Close

This should give you a good feel for the output from the early 70s to the early 80s.

@ me if you want to dig deeper.
 
Poly-Rythmo said:
Zombie is my personal favourite. There are so many albums from around them it can be difficult to know where to start but others I really dig include Gentleman, Expensive Shit and Rotorofo Fight. It's pretty hard to go wrong in that mid to late 70s period though.
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I’ll second Roforofo Fight. Really good and you get the line “Go and Shit!” on top of the fact the music is great, so that’s a bonus.

Coffin for Head of State is really good (and important) considering the story behind it.
 
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