"When dis­cussing a musi­cian like Fela Kuti, many of our usu­al terms fail us. They fail us, that is, if we came of age in a musi­cal cul­ture in which artists and bands put out an album of ten or so lyrics-for­ward songs every two or three years, pro­mot­ing it on tour while also play­ing their biggest hits. Fela - as all his fans refer to him - could put out six or sev­en albums in a sin­gle year,"
"Wal­ter Ben­jamin said of great lit­er­ary works that they either dis­solve a genre or invent one, and Fela's musi­cal works invent­ed the genre of Afrobeat. The sound of that genre, as explained by Noah Lefevre in the Poly­phon­ic video above, reflects the dis­tinc­tive for­ma­tion of Fela him­self, who was born and raised in Nige­ria, stud­ied at the Trin­i­ty Col­lege of Music in Lon­don, and came of age dur­ing the end of Africa's era of decol­o­niza­tion."
Fela Kuti produced music at an unprecedented rate, often releasing six or seven albums in a single year and refusing to perform material that had already been recorded. His compositions were long, frequently occupying an entire side of an LP, and combined West African rhythms with jazz and funk textures. The fusion created Afrobeat, a genre rooted in his Nigerian upbringing, Western musical training, and the historical moment of African decolonization. Performances and recordings incorporated extended grooves, chants, calls-and-responses, political exhortations, and English phrasing that sounded unfamiliar to Anglo-American listeners.
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