Muyiwa Kunnuji does not hide his astonishment or his joy, through which a form of relief penetrates: A few days ago, he discovered through social networks a group from Nigeria who sent him a short video taken live. Her name? Lagos Thugs. “About fifteen musicians in their twenties who play exactly as we did. The same energy! They are right, ”excites the forty trumpeter who has accompanied the iconic Fela for the last years of his career and has lived for six years in the south of France, where he has set up his own group called Osemako.
Afrobeat as conceived and carried by its famous countryman has therefore not disappeared from the bustling Nigerian megalopolis, half a century after its appearance in the musical landscape. It was after returning from a nine-month stay in the United States in 1969-70 that the formula certainly took shape in his father’s mind. With an element that is not artistic, but which will affect all the other components.
Kampe
Across the Atlantic, his travel plans do not go as planned at all, and in this particular context, the young African in his thirties is hard hit by the revolutionary African-American idea of the black panthers and the pan-Africanist current. . “I became aware of another dimension of the African past,” he acknowledges in the book Fela the Fighter by Mabinuori Kayode Idowu. The ideological struggle is no stranger to her: her mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, won the Lenin Peace Prize in Moscow in 1960 and rewarded her action for women’s rights.
Until then, music passed through Trinity College of Music in London had first excelled in jazz then with its orchestra Koola Lobitos in a repertoire inspired by highlife, entertainment music very popular at the time. If its epicenter is in Ghana, Nigeria’s neighbor, this stream has left traces of Mali in the Congo as well as in Europe: Osibisa, set up by a few expatriates in the United Kingdom, achieved in 1971 a success that falls under news for a group from the African continent with an afro-progressive register and ubiquitous brass.
Fela, saxophonist, also gives a leading role to the winds in his compositions – they were eleven when Muyiwa Kunnuji took service with his group Egypt 80! But his approach is quite different, derived from the reflection that now guides him and led him to politicize his remarks in a spectacular way by advocating a break with the Western model. With him, the brass, manifested without softness, like the artist’s words and determination, breaks fist raised on every occasion.
The difference also lies in the musical formulation: legato for highlife, staccato for afrobeat, in addition, played mainly in less fashion, as opposed to its fake Ghanaian brother, which is less focused on trance. “Fela focused on the groove. Afrobeat is two or three chords repeated in a loop. It makes it more hypnotic. It is its power, its strength,” adds Muyiwa Kunnuji.
Tony Allen
In this field, in terms of rhythmic motif, Afrobeat has found an architect whose contribution has proven to be as important as it is persistent: Tony Allen, who plays drums for Fela from 1964 to 1979, is the second main character . Self-taught, attracted to jazz, he wants to “tell a story” with his sticks and barrels because “that’s how we should play drums,” he explains in An Autobiography of The Master Drummer of Afrobeat. Based on what they have laid out, the couple continued to make records in the 1970s. More than thirty 33 revolutions per. Minute, which consists of a maximum of only two tracks per. Page, was recorded over the decade.
This incredible productivity, this new approach to music as well as Fela’s personality, the victim of several setbacks with the authorities (remains in prison, the firing of his headquarters called the Republic of Kalakuta), which he does not spare in his lyrics, draws attention to afrobeat. Many artists from neighboring countries want to capture this energy in the studio in Lagos, as others go to Kingston at the same time to try out the Jamaican experience and soak up the vibrations of Bob Marley.
Among those traveling to the Nigerian economic capital are members of the Poly-Rythmo Orchestra in Benin, Togolese Roger Damawuzan, Cameroonian Manu Dibango for his homemade album … without the “afrobeat” brand. The glue for their productions is always relevant!
Everyone brings their own vision, and interactions with other musical genres multiply, and sometimes the lines blur. The influence can be found even in western rock, especially on the album Remain in Light by the American group Talking Heads, which was released in 1980, and that the Beninese Angélique Kidjo went again by emphasizing her afrobatic dimension in 2017.
At the match, he has chosen to lead, and even though he is not from the popular teams, like his sidekick Tony Allen, Fela becomes the voice of the voiceless. On the national stage, his example is spreading. When AIDS reigns in 1997, those who follow in his footsteps are called Alariwo of Africa, Ayetoro, Adenji Heavywind, Kola Ogunkoya or Lagbaja.
But it is his children, Femi Kuti and then his younger son Seun Kuti, who want to know how to occupy the field and take over at the international level for two decades without doing any harm. And the torch has even just been picked up by the next generation, like Made Kuti, grandson of the king of Afrobeat.
Planetary dimension
Having become a freelancer at the end of his collaboration with Fela, Tony Allen has played an important role in maintaining, if not developing, the music of which he is a co-founder. As a traveling ambassador, he worked on his planetary dimension, which is now undeniable, though each actor seeks to offer a personal color: the examples of Kokoroko in the UK, the Souljazz Orchestra in Canada testify to this. Whether it’s the Chileans from Newen Afrobeat, the Americans from Antibalas through the French Fanga and Smith Brothers, the Nigerian musician has multiplied the performance of Afrobeat collectives.
The iconic drummer also brought his original touch and made his favorite music dialogue with others: especially Malian Oumou Sangaré, Guinea’s Sia Tolno, Brazilian Flavia Coelho or Briton Damon Albarn. Without forgetting his personal career, marked by albums considered masterpieces.
In addition to his action on the spot, there is also the former who attended the “school” Fela through his orchestras Africa 70 and then Egypt 80: Kiala Nzavotunga, co-founder in France of the pioneer group Ghetto Blaster, Oghene Kologbo and its Afrobeat Academy or even Muyiwa Kunnuji .
Infinite samples
In the classics of Afrobeat (Beasts of No Nation, Water No Get Enemy, Colonial Mentality …), sample lovers have found an ideal material for its repetitive structure to serve as a support for hip hop: the American greats Missy Eliott, Mos Def, the Roots, Jay-Z or French Leeroy, Zoxea or Chinese Man have borrowed some passages of his songs from Fela. At Fela Soul, producer Amerigo Gazeway went further by making a perfect blend by placing the flow of De La Soul on Nigerian music.
“Lagos will never be the same without Fela”, sings Tony Allen on his final project with South African saxophonist Hugh Masekela, entitled Rejoice and released a few days before his death in 2020. Today, other artists ignite megalopolis and the young people who live there: Wizkid, Davido, Burna Boy, Yemi Alade are stars all over the continent.
If their city music has nothing in common with their elders, or even is the opposite in both form and substance, the similarity between their names can only be a source of confusion: a single letter, a terminal fragile “s”, originally separated in writing as orally the modern Afrobeat from the fifteenth Afrobeat. Too little to resist over time a curious semantic-orthographic shift that seems inevitable, recalling the example of the original rhythm and blues of the 1950s and r’n’b emerged four decades later. A name for two radically different music. Except for one point: make Africa shine.
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