September 14, 2023 • 44 mins
Fela Kuti was a musician and activist who pioneered the jazzy, uniquely West African genre of Afrobeat. His musical testing ground, political pulpit and spiritual home was a nightclub he created in Lagos, The Afrika Shrine. A venue at the heart of his community that would welcome legends, be burnt to the ground by the military, set the stage for some of his greatest performances, and inspire some of his most legendary songs.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
The music played and created inside some of the world's
greatest nightclubs has had a lasting impact on the communities
around them. Some music has gone on to serve as
a form of activism, reaching people around the world and
bringing them into a musical lineage that spans generations. Music
is powerful. It can shift culture and gives us the
(00:25):
tools we need to enact real change. So today we're
going to a club in Nigeria that politicized a whole
generation on the dance floor, a musical shrine inside of
a nightclub where people would listen to political protests hidden
in infectious melodies. When Ricky Stain first encountered the enigmatic
(00:50):
musician whose musical legacy would go on to span decades,
he was driving through the English countryside in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
That was in the back of a van on the
INFO Motorway, lying in a heap of African dancers, on
our way back from a gig.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Ricky worked in the music industry, coordinating dance troops and
musicians as they toured around the world, and he was
on the road when he first heard the song that
would change the trajectory of his life.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Somebody put on a cassette and it was sorrow, tears
and blood. Do you know that song?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Run Run Run?
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Some people lost some bad, some one nearly died, some
one jar has died.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
What list they come?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Run Run Run? Everybody's katata? And I was gobsmat, what
the hell? What is this?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
He instantly felt a connection to the music, the drums,
the horns, the infectious melody, and the story the song
was telling through its lyrics. Ricky had to know more.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I had an African music guru by the name of
Jumbo Van Rennon, and I went to see Jumbo and
I said, who's this guy.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Fella Fella Kootie was the artist behind the song. Ricky
didn't know it yet, but the reason why it sounded
so unique was because Fella had created a whole new
genre called Afrobeat. Jumbo gave Ricky some more music to
listen to, and he.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Went away and came back with his arm full of
these albums, which he scattered around on the floor. And
I was just staring at all these amazing, colorful album covers.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Afrobeat combined jazz, funk, and soul with inspiration from traditional
Yoruba music and West African high life. Creating an upbeat
sound filled with percussion, jazz horns, chanted vocals, and complex
toe tapping rhythms.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I just felt, I don't know, it's almost like I
felt he was talking to me. It was kind of crazy.
Slowly I started going through them and I just wanted
to meet this guy.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
You know, And soon enough he did. Fella was having
a concert in London and a friend of his invited
Ricky to meet Fella.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I sat down next to Fella and we just started
chatting and then I can't remember what I said. I
said something and he just spun around and looked at me,
and we both looked at each other and started laughing,
and that was the beginning of our friendship.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Fella was the kind of man who stood at the
center of attention in every room he stepped into, whose
infectious energy made everyone around him shine a little bit brighter.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
He was charismatic, what can I say. I think what
really attracted me immediately was this kind of candor. Everything
was just clear and straight and direct.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
They worked on a couple of projects together. Ricky booked
for festival he was organizing, and Fella agreed to join
the board of advisors. They moved in similar circles within
the African music scene, and then, during a trip to Nigeria,
Ricky visited the music venue that Fella called home for
the first time, the Africa Shrine. The Africa Shrine was
(04:20):
a nightclub, music venue, and community center. Fella would perform
there throughout the peak of his career to craft and
mold the jazzy but uniquely Nigerian sound he would become
known for Afrobeat. At two am, Ricky and Fella walked
past shops and bars until they reached a road called
(04:40):
Pepple Street, and when they did, they headed in the
direction of the joyful music floating out into the night.
They'd arrived at the Africa Shrine.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
And it was ran to the roftons.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Ricky was immediately engulfed by the music and allowed himself
to become swept up in the moment.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
The atmosphere was electric ministers, soldiers not in uniform, ragamuffins,
gangsters that be a total cross section of the community.
The band was already playing when we'd arrived. They've been
playing for hours. I immediately headed for the dance floor.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Ricky danced along to the band and took in the
joy on everybody's faces, marveling at the way they danced
with reckless abandon. The energy in the room was infectious.
It wasn't just a concert or a party. Ricky was
in the midst of a community celebration.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
A fellow would climb up on stage and the whole
thing would just take off. It was just magical, you know.
It was just a magical, wonderful I could almost say yeah,
I couldn't say spiritual experience. It was paradise for me.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
From London Audio iHeartRadio and executive producer Paris Hilton. This
is the History of the World's Greatest Nightclubs a twelve
part podcast about the iconic venues and people that revolutionized
how we party. Some of the world's most legendary nightclubs
(06:22):
were known for the unique community they welcomed, others for
the cultural movements they started, and some for the musicians
and DJs they introduced to the world. The best nightclubs
champion new music, transform lives, and provide an escape from
life's pressures. One more thing. This is the history of
some of the world's greatest nightclubs. Not a ranking of
(06:45):
every club in the world. It's an exploration of the spaces,
people and club nights that made a lasting impact on
nightlife and music. Today, I'm your host, Ultra Nate. I'm
a singer, songwriter music and I found my purpose in
club culture. This is Episode eleven. The Africa Shrine in Legos, Nigeria.
(07:09):
Felakuti was a musician, activist, and revolutionary voice in the
midst of one of the most politically turbulent eras in
Nigerian history. He pioneered the jazzy, soulful but uniquely West
African sound afrobeat, and his legacy inspired the creation of
the modern musical genre Afrobeats with an s. Fella's musical
(07:33):
testing ground, political pulpit and spiritual home was a nightclub
he created in Legos, The Africa Shrine, a venue at
the heart of his community that will welcome presidents, be
burnt to the ground by the military, set the stage
for some of his greatest performances, and inspires some of
his most legendary songs. For a club like The Shrine
(08:03):
to paint a legacy that would last over fifty years,
it needed a fierce leader. Fela Kuti was born on
October fifteenth in a town just fifty miles north of
the Nigerian capital, Legos. It was nineteen thirty eight. Nigeria
was under the rule of the colonial British Empire and
would be until just two weeks before Fella's twenty second birthday.
(08:28):
But Fella's political awakening began long before Nigeria's independence. Fella's
father was a pastor who stood against British colonial rule,
and his mother was a fierce activist who organized marches
to advocate for women's rights, So it was no surprise
that Fella would go on to become one of the
(08:48):
country's most prominent political voices. Fella's parents were politically active,
but he'd also come from a long line of musicians.
Speaker 5 (08:58):
My name is Jennie and Nikoloko.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
I am the first child and first daughter of Fella.
My father was born into a legacy. My great grandfather
was a musician. Then my grandfather was a musician even
though he was a referend as well. Then he Fela,
who was another huge legist, seven generations of musicians.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Even though Fela came from a musically gifted family, his
parents wanted a stable future for him, so they sent
him to the UK to become a doctor in the
late nineteen fifties, but not long after he arrived in England,
Fella decided to study music instead, and then he started
his first band, Fella Ransom Cootie and his High Life Rakers.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
And his music was loved I mean by the people
who heard it in Nigeria and elsewhere in the world
as time went by.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
He was inspired by high life and the traditional Yoruba
music he'd heard grown up in Nigeria, and the American jazz,
funk and soul he'd heard and studied while he was abroad.
Fella brought together his favorite elements of both, put his
own unique spin on them, and created a new genre, Afrobeat.
(10:16):
Buffella didn't just want to make music for dancing and celebration.
Fellow wanted to make music with lyrics that felt like
rallying cries.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Fella was the greatest proponent of communication by virtue of
music and used his music as a weapon to attack
any form of coingestice, social injustice, or corruption.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Nigeria had won its independence in nineteen sixty, Buffella had
a lot of issues with the Nigerian government that had
replaced colonial rule, so he used music to share his
political message.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
You know. I see his music as it was like
a chariot. I describe it as a chariot which his
message could write, because the message was really talking about
the things that needed to be talked about, naming names,
talking about corruption, mismanagement in a way that was so
(11:13):
attractive to people because it had this amazing beat behind it.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
His music directly called the government out, but Fella executed
it with so much joy and soul that the message
quickly reached a wide audience.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
So even if you're not listening to the words, you're
bump into the music. You can't help yourself, and the
words you'll find yourself singing them.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
That's what made each of his songs feel so powerful.
They were vibrant musical acts of resistance. As Fella looked
around at the corruption, the hoarded wealth, and government officials
who lived lavish lives while ordinary Nigerian suffered, he started
to speak and sing with even more precision.
Speaker 7 (11:55):
It was like criticizing so many things about government. My
name is Mabiinori Kayode Ido, but everybody calls me id.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
In nineteen seventy four, a friend invited ID to a
gathering at Fella's house. When they met they locked eyes.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
His eyes came one on one on me.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
You know, ID hadn't met Fella before, but everybody in
Lego's New Fella. He was one of the most famous
people in Nigeria. So Id was starstruck.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
For me.
Speaker 7 (12:32):
Was the last thing I expected that, you know, I
here he was talking to me direct. You know, I
didn't know how to reply easily. The only thing that
came to my mind was no, sir.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
It felt like the right thing to say.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Nigerian culture had raised Id to respect his elders, so
in the middle of the conversation, he called Fella sir.
Speaker 7 (12:56):
And you know, it was like putting a patrol in
fire because Fela busted out.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Nobody in this house addresses me like sir. My name
is Fella, you call it fella.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Fella hated the idea of treating people with deference just
because of who they were, whether that was an elder,
a soldier, or a famous musician. So he told Idea that.
Speaker 7 (13:20):
Was explaining a relationship between DJ, the younger generation and
the older generation of Africans.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
You know, in our society, how they teach us to buy.
Speaker 7 (13:31):
Through fear to respect older folks instead of creating natural
respect between between the older folks and the younger.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
But this discussion went on like for like three.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Hours, you know, and they quickly built up a friendly rapport.
So Fellas started to ask Ida about his life.
Speaker 7 (13:51):
I did, what are your plans for the future, and
I said, oh, I want to go to the university
to study philosophy or history. And then he started to
pick my all, you want to go and study all
those Socrates, Aristotle and I felt, oh, yes, I am
on a equaled grounds with him.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Let's just say Fella had a lot to say about
European philosophy. So he spent the rest of the night
teaching Id about afrocentrism, the Black Power movement, and the
African history they hadn't been taught at school. That conversation
completely changed the trajectory of Id's life. He was enrolled
(14:32):
to start college at the University of Nigeria, but what
Fella taught him made him question everything.
Speaker 7 (14:39):
That's why today, if there's anything I oughte to you
a fella, I think I owe him the fact that
he gave me political and historical consciousness. So all this
kind of opened my mind my vision, I said, f
U C. K Nigerian University.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
He wasn't the only young person to have a political
awakening after speaking to Fella and hearing his lyrics. Fellow
was encouraging young people to question the systems that govern them,
to reject the status quo and think for themselves, to
be independent and to seek freedom in every area of
their lives. He literally had a song called Teacher, Don't
(15:22):
teach Me Nonsense calling out the education system. And it
wasn't long before the authorities that Fellow was speaking out
against started to feel threatened by him. Id still remembers
a warning and acquaintance of theirs gave him.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
You know what he said.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
He said, tell the brother to be careful because the
word within the high government circles is that they had
to do something to stop Fellow because all the youths
are dressing the way he dresses, smoking what he smokes,
and beginning.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
To react like him.
Speaker 7 (15:57):
And if they don't stop him, he could become a
revolution in the country.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Buffella's music, his conversations, his lectures, and the community surrounding
him didn't have a home for a while. Fella played
regular gigs at a venue called Kakadoo Nightclub, but the
owner banned him from performing because he was scared of
government retaliation. Buffella had an ally in a club owner,
(16:26):
Chief Canoe.
Speaker 7 (16:28):
Chief Canon owned another nightclub was called Empire Hotel.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
At that time, the Empire Hotel hosted a bunch of
different traveling bands in the sixties.
Speaker 7 (16:40):
All the big bands, even Ghana bands, you know round
Blas Dance band et Menser.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
So they welcomed the chance to have Fella create his
own venue there in a heartbeat.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Why don't you bring your club home?
Speaker 7 (16:53):
You live just fifteen meters away from and Fela I said, oh,
you take a good idea.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
It was so close to Fella's home that he traveled
there in an unconventional way.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
He used to ride from his house to the club
and a donkey at a leisurely paced on the middle
of the road blocking all the traffic with huge crowds
cheering fell about me chief priest until he got to
the club.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Fella built an open air venue in the courtyard of
the former Empire Hotel, but it needed a new name,
so Fella re christened it and named it the Shrine.
He named it the Shrine because it wasn't just a
music venue. It was a spiritual place and a political
platform that would go on to encompass the values that
(17:42):
were so deeply intertwined with his community and who he was.
Fella had been raised as the son of a pastor,
and as he got older, he began to embrace elements
of the traditional Yoruba spirituality. Here's his daughter Yenni again.
Speaker 6 (17:57):
From there his science to develop his Africanism, his spiritual ideology.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
He built a religious shrine inside the venue, complete with candles, statues,
names of spirits, and an altar.
Speaker 6 (18:12):
It not became more of a place of worship, not
just a place to perform, but a place of worship.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
That's why on Saturdays he worshiped at the shrine before
any performance.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
He had to prepare spiritually before he could bring his
all musically.
Speaker 7 (18:29):
And that was why you always hear him. See, my
music is not for entertainment. My music is to spread
the message.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
And that was most evident on Friday nights at the shrine.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Friday night was Yabies night, where a fellow used to
banter with the audience, in fact encourage the audience to
talk about issues of the day.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
On Yabis nights, he'd welcome talks about politics in the
state of modern day Nigeria. The audience was made up
of regular members of the community, from tea teatures to shopkeepers,
farmers to students. It was like a weekly town hall
with music, and the discussions Fella had at those Yabist
nights served as the inspiration for some of his greatest songs.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Discussions that were held in the shrine were give him
ideas and he would go and write the lyrics, come
back in and stop, you know, the process of recording.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
And one of the songs that was inspired by those
Yabist knights at the Shrine set the trajectory of the
rest of Fella's life. It was the song Zombie.
Speaker 7 (19:33):
Feil I released The Zombie in seventy six, and I
mean the album was really a big success all over Nigeria.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
It had an infectious rhythm and the kind of beat
that made you want to get up and dance, but
it was also very political.
Speaker 7 (19:48):
Fell I described the night drum military as they're walking dead,
you know, zombies.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Listen to the lyrics Zombi zbi zombie, no go think
unless you tell him to think. The song compared the
(20:17):
military to zombies, zombies who went around obeying orders without thinking.
The lyrics were purposefully provocative because to Fella, the military
with just political puppets, and he wasn't afraid to say so.
Speaker 7 (20:32):
The military, they are not there to protect the people,
but the protects power.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Fella already had enemies in high places for his outspoken personality,
but releasing a catchy, upbeat earworm of a song with
politically charged lyrics was even bolder. And it wasn't long
before people all across the country were singing along, inspired
to fight back, to stand up for their rights. But
(20:59):
that song put a target on Fella's back. The authorities
decided that they had had enough of Fella and the
influence the music coming out of the Shrine was having
on young Nigerians, and on February eighteenth, nineteen seventy seven,
Id was at the shrine working on a political newspaper
that he and Fella started.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
I was just like trying to sit down when I
heard the big noise.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
There had allegedly been a fight between a soldier and
one of Fella's drivers, so the soldier had gone to
Fella's house to confront the driver, but he'd returned with
backup and things escalated quickly.
Speaker 7 (21:39):
I came out, and so more so just we're I'm
beginning to arrive on the spot. And then before we
knew it, we just saw about it as armed with
all counters of Weport blocking all the streets.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
ID watched as Fella tried to call out for help,
but the soldiers had begun their attack. A thousand soldiers,
those quote unquote zombies had surrounded Fella's house and the shrine,
and that day they carried out a full military attack
on dozens of civilians.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
They beat everybody of sixty two. Please on fire.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Remember the song that Ricky heard at the start of
the episode, Sorrow, Tears and Blood. Fella released that song
not long after the attack in nineteen seventy seven, and
that's what the scene at Fella's home and the shrine
that day was Sorrow, tears and blood. It was a
brutal attack. People were arrested. The soldiers violently beat dozens
(22:42):
of residents up, and in an act of pure cruelty,
they threw Fella's seventy seven year old mother out of
a second floor window.
Speaker 6 (22:51):
This is Familia, Oh flops our blood for this cone
three on this tree.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
The governments.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
That adult Windo.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
She died soon after. Fella was beaten up until he
was unconscious. Then they poured highly flammable liquid all over
the shrine, set a match and burned it to the ground.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
And he did everything to stop him.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
Filler from were spread.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
In the message.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Fella didn't perform in Nigeria again for a while. The
shrine had been burned down, and almost every other venue
in the country was terrified of the intimidation and retaliation
they might face if they hosted a Fella concert. But
while they'd attacked him, hurt his friends, and killed one
of the people he loved the most, the authorities couldn't
(23:48):
beat Fella into submission or scare him into silence, because
the musical, spiritual, and political fire that ran through every
element of Fella's life was fire that just couldn't be
put out, and the shrine it would have a second life.
(24:10):
After the shrine burned down, Fella spent two years touring
the world and singing songs that inspired people to reevaluate
the truths they had been told and the systems that
governed them. Because Fella carried a spirit of activism through
everything he did. When he returned to Nigeria, he decided
to reclaim his place as one of the most thrilling
(24:32):
performers in the country by opening a new shrine. But
this time he built it from the ground up. He
bought a plot of land on Pepple Street, created a
new venue and named it the Africa Shrine. The Africa
Shrine wasn't just a music venue. It was a community
(24:54):
center too.
Speaker 6 (24:55):
People who are down on laut or think that they're
down a an or think they don't have any where
to go.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Their first photo of police to shrine.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
The shrine created jobs for dozens of local Legotians. It
was free entry for most of the week and if
people didn't have a safe roof to sleep under, the
shrine welcomed them with open arms.
Speaker 6 (25:14):
I mean, we have eve thought someone from Rwanda before
during the wand of war.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
He was a refugee during the Rwanda genocide in nineteen
ninety four.
Speaker 6 (25:24):
It was the very nicest guy. I still remember. He
lived at the shrine for a couple of years.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
The Africa Shrine stood at the center of its community.
Fella mapped out a weekly schedule with the community in mind.
Fella performed there around four times a week, but each
night had its own specific community oriented focus.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Sunday Jump was particularly designed for students so that they
could sneak out back to campus before the prefets came calling.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
It was a day when families could bring their children
to enjoy the music too.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
The timing six to ten pm.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Then there was Tuesday.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Tuesday was Ladies' Night. In other words, ladies could come
in free or that their boyfriends had to pay.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Fridays were still yabish nights where Fellow would welcome social
and political conversations. And then came Saturday.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Saturday Night was the comprehensive show. That was when the
musicians wore costumes and Fella presented a choreographed dance stage
performance with all of the dancers and singers. I mean,
every night was just the same magic. You know.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Despite ongoing political intimidation and resistance to the message he
was trying to share, Fella just kept on making music.
Over the course of his life, Feller released over fifty albums,
not fifteen fifty five zero. Music flowed through his veins,
and on Saturday Nights he brought that musical mastery onto stage.
(26:58):
Those nights were a spe because Fellow was a legendary performer,
a true master of his craft.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Sound check, he would personally tune every instrument, which is
quite unusual for enough, but he knew what it was
he wanted to listen to.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
He would perform for hours at a time with a
full band and a whole troop of dancers. And when
he performed at the Africa Shrine, it was almost always
new unreleased music because the Africa Shrine was his musical
testing ground for new ideas.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
In the shrine during in the afternoon, it'd be one
hundred or so the real efficionados. He would develop the song.
Once the song was developed, he started to play it
in the shrine and he would singing it for maybe
a month, two months, three months.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Trying out new musical compositions and instruments to different crowds
at the Africa Shrine until he tailored the song to perfection.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
But then he'd said, how many times can I sing
about Margaret Thatcher. He would then go into the studio
to record, and once that song which recorded, that was
it the song bye Bye.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Once a song was solidified, recorded and released on an album,
that was it. He was on to the next thing.
Speaker 6 (28:24):
You come to him.
Speaker 7 (28:27):
By the record, Oh Tella play me, lady said, oh
go on by the record.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Do you know which made each night at the Africa
Shrine feel even more special? It was new music. It
was a fleeting experience. It was like being a member
of a secret club. So people from all around the
world would come to watch Fellow perform at the Africa Shrine,
including Stevie Wonder, Bootsie Collins, and James Brown's band. Even
(29:01):
a former member of the Beatles left the Africa Shrine
feeling inspired.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yeah, well, according to Paul.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
And by Paul, Ricky means Paul McCartney.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
He said, but when he started the band started to play,
I cried, I wept, He said, I never heard any
band in the world anything like this before.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
For Fella's birthday, Ricky asked musicians who loved him to
talk about their favorite songs, and Paul got back to
him and said, I.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Don't remember the name of this song, but I remember
the riff, and he's talking about something thirty five years earlier,
and he played this riff.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Here's the clip of Paul trying to remember that song
he'd heard Fella play over thirty five years ago.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
So this is why I remember from the Shrine. But
the riff was definitely this.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Yeah, I never know.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Sha, and I immediately knew which song it was while
black men they suffered. In fact, I sent it to him.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
That's the thing about the Africa Shrine. The music people
heard there really struck them. It was spiritual. It got
into their bones, made them sing, made them think, gave
them a new perspective on the world. Yennikootie, Fella's daughter
grew up spending nights at the Africa Shrine, and she
(30:25):
really felt the spirituality of her father's performances there.
Speaker 6 (30:30):
When Fella was alive, I went to the Shrine at
least once a week, sometimes.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Twice, to watch him dancing across the stage, commanding the
audience's attention and creating an atmosphere that pulled people out
onto the dance floor and connected them to a higher power.
Speaker 6 (30:46):
I'd seen Phila from the early performances when I was
a kid, when he was young and danced and firebrand,
to when he got older.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
And slawer.
Speaker 5 (31:00):
What's still enigmatic.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Over the course of his life, Fellow was arrested two
hundred times, spent twenty months in prison, and was banned
from contesting in Nigeria's presidential election, but Phelip persisted and
played his spiritual political music at the Africa Shrine for
the rest of his life until life caught up with him.
(31:23):
He died in nineteen ninety seven from complications related to AIDS.
He was only fifty eight, but his children grew up
watching his speeches and musical performances at the Africa Shrine,
and the values their father taught them stuck with them.
Speaker 5 (31:40):
Integrity.
Speaker 6 (31:42):
Integrity is I think one of the most important spirituality
knowing who you are.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
So much of knowing who you are is knowing where
you came from and passing that legacy down to future generations.
It's a heavy task to carry, but when Fella died,
his children knew that continuing the legacy of their father's
music and the Africa Shrine was one of the greatest
ways that they could honor their father.
Speaker 6 (32:12):
I don't think the Creator is wicked, so what they
put on your lap is what you can't do.
Speaker 5 (32:18):
So I think that this task that I've been.
Speaker 6 (32:22):
Given is not beyond me, and I do enjoy of
folding that legacy.
Speaker 5 (32:31):
I enjoy it and I believe it's my shoot.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
When Fella died in nineteen ninety seven. His eldest daughter, Yennikouti,
along with his eldest son Femi Kuti, decided they wanted
to keep the Africa Shrine and Fella's physical legacy alive,
but they ran into a problem.
Speaker 6 (32:57):
The funny thing about the Old Africa Shrive was that Fella.
Speaker 5 (33:01):
Had built it.
Speaker 6 (33:02):
He had paid for a lease on the land and
the lease was I think maybe twenty years. By the
time he died, the lease had expired, but he built
the shrine, so the building was his. The land belonged
to this family and lost fellow that wanted to retain.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
It, but the original owners of the land refused, saying
that the land wouldn't be passed down to the Cootie family.
Speaker 5 (33:25):
We begged them, we offered them monthly. They wanted their
land back.
Speaker 6 (33:30):
I think they were just bent on killing the dream
and killing the everytage.
Speaker 5 (33:34):
They had this thing against Fellas, so they were just
like Lo Lo lo.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
They tried everything.
Speaker 6 (33:40):
Since people we went to ourselves. We did everything to
try and get them to let us keep the shrine,
and they didn't.
Speaker 5 (33:53):
We just said, okay, let's cut our losses, let's go
and look for land.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
They decided to build a new shrine and traveled around
Legos looking for a plot of land to call home.
But they couldn't just build it anywhere. It had to
be special.
Speaker 6 (34:12):
My brother was going around looking for the land, and
every time you would call say I found this place,
and he will call me.
Speaker 5 (34:17):
He said, come on and see this one. I'll just
say no, this one is not it.
Speaker 6 (34:22):
And we found one piece and it was okay, but
it was not perfect.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
I was like, hey, it's okay, but let's still be looking.
And he got angry.
Speaker 7 (34:31):
Why are you going, George?
Speaker 6 (34:35):
I said, sorry, I just wondered. He said, oh, he
found this piece of land as you come. And I
went there and I saw this piece of land and
I said.
Speaker 5 (34:45):
This is it. This is perfect. This is the shrine
and the rest is history. People came with all types
of ideas, you know.
Speaker 6 (34:56):
This exotic fountain and these and that. We said, no,
what you want is what's the old shrine. What we
did is try and recreate that spiritual feeling that you
had when you went to the old shrine.
Speaker 5 (35:13):
That's the feeling of coming hood, that feeling of I'm
very comfortable here. This is a comfortable space.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
So they painted the building with bright colors.
Speaker 5 (35:23):
Orange and yellow colors. Those are my father's favorite colors.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
And they covered the walls with Fella's messages.
Speaker 6 (35:30):
I used to go to a lot of my father's lectures,
and you know the one Africani isn't the one being
African and proud at being black and proud.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
So they took snippets from those lectures and quotes their
father loved and had artists paint the words onto the walls.
Speaker 6 (35:47):
Man who doesn't look where he's coming from will not
know where he's at or where he's going.
Speaker 5 (35:53):
Fear is not for man.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
But they didn't just feature the feel good, inspiring quotes.
They chose the deeply political ones too, like scathing criticisms
Fella had about the former Nigerian president.
Speaker 5 (36:06):
I want to say, is a fool, and so we
have that for.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Sterits Fellas spent his whole life inspired by other black
activists who his children wanted to honor too, So they
hung photos of the giants whose shoulders their father had
stood on.
Speaker 6 (36:25):
We have Malchael Meggs, we have Michael Scove, we have
Kwame and Kumar, Martin, Luther King, Tomas Sankara Fella.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Befella's political legacy wasn't just songs and quotes. Throughout his life,
he and the Africa Shrine were the target of violent
attacks and unfair closures. So when his children opened the
New Africa Shrine, that became a target. Two.
Speaker 5 (36:57):
It was really hard.
Speaker 6 (36:58):
A couple of times the shuttles out of the shrine,
they locked the doors and didn't let us go in.
Speaker 5 (37:03):
It was very hard.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
The authorities would find petty reasons to shut the club down.
They said it was too loud or there were too
many people inside.
Speaker 6 (37:12):
So it was really a difficult because you know a
lot of people survived from the shripe. So when you
look at you remove the food from a lot of
mouths in a lot of mouths one hundreds.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
But after a few years of being open and making
it clear that they weren't going anywhere, the New Africa
Shrine began to thrive under the ownership of Fella's children.
They opened the New Africa Shrine in two thousand.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
It's just imbued with Fellaw's spirit. It's just that there's
this feeling in the air. I take people that have
never been there before, and then I turned around to
look at the person that I've brought and they're just
standing there with their mouth open.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
These brothers have continued their father's musical legacy. Fami Coutie,
Fella's oldest son, performs on Sundays, Sean Couti, Fella's youngest son,
performs on the last Saturday of every month, and Fella's grandson,
mad Day, performs there on the last Friday of every month.
Speaker 5 (38:19):
It makes me happy. I cry, especially when I watch
my nephew. Makes me cry because.
Speaker 6 (38:26):
First of all, my parents are as alive to see him,
and I wish they were. Secondly, I just watched the
legacy boy and he just my heart sows, brings tears
to my eyes.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
The shrine has also inspired a new generation.
Speaker 5 (38:44):
A lot of young musicians. A lot of young musicians.
Speaker 6 (38:48):
It's their dream to perform, you know, because they feel
that that is where their career has to be launched.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Fellow pioneer the genre afrobeat, the soulful, jazzy, high life
inspired music we've been listening to throughout this story, but
what Fella created went on to inspire the modern musical
genre Afrobeats with an S.
Speaker 8 (39:13):
Chances are if you have listened to rapper pop station
today you have heard some afrobeat songs. The genre exported
from Africa is now burning up the charts, but some
of the songs now popular came out months or even
years ago.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Afrobeats is the genre of popular contemporary West African music
that skyrocketed into the charts over the past few years
with songs like Fall by Davido, Essence by Thames and
whiz Kid, and Last Last by burn A Boy. In fact,
some of those musicians got their first big shot at
(39:46):
the New Africa Shrine.
Speaker 6 (39:48):
Now Video's first performance where he became nonimals at the Shrine.
You know he came the first year and he begged
climb on stage. And by the next year he was a.
Speaker 5 (40:01):
And he came.
Speaker 6 (40:02):
He says, yes, I beg last to coom and said,
now you're begging me to come on stage.
Speaker 5 (40:05):
Whiz Kid, whis Kid came on. He was a backup
singer today look at him.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
And Berna Boy had one of his early performances there.
Speaker 5 (40:14):
I remember Bona Boys first performance.
Speaker 6 (40:16):
His grandfather called me, I want my grandsons to play
at the Shrine.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Afrobeats sounds quite different to the afro beat that Fella created.
You can hear more hip hop and R and B
influences in it, and it's not as political as Fella's
music was. But the sound that Fella created still lives
on in the music. Fella came from a long line
of musicians, and after his death, that baton just continued
(40:42):
to pass down from generation to generation, inspiring young musicians
to put their own twist on it. As his music
continued to reach new listeners around the globe.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
And you know, on many occasions have been in a
position to introduce some fellas music that hasn't heard it before,
and it's always the same thing. They're just hooked immediately.
I've never met anybody that says, oh, yeah, it wasn't all. No,
it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. I mean, music is
(41:16):
an extraordinary means of communication, isn't it one that we
I think need in our lives.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Fella's legacy lives on through the music. The sound he
created at the Africa Shrine has been passed down across generations,
influencing new styles and genres, and the fiercely political stance
he took in his lyrics continues to inspire people in
Nigeria and around the world. His song Beasts of No
(41:44):
Nation became a rallying cry for a wave of protests
in Nigeria in twenty twenty. Legacy is something that Yenni
and her siblings think about a lot as they teach
their family about the rich heritage they came from.
Speaker 5 (42:01):
You know, this is your grandfather. You are born into
a very great legacy, you know.
Speaker 6 (42:06):
So I think it's important that we start talking to
our children, our grandchildren, so that they understand the power
and the responsibility of that legacy.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
So the Kuti's siblings have put it in their wills
that nobody can sell the new Africa Shrine, that it
will be passed down through the Kouti family line.
Speaker 6 (42:25):
I hope that they will know the kind of legacy
that they have been born into and they will continue
that legacy.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
Africa Shrine must remain for generations to come.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
In the next and final episode of the History of
the World's Greatest Nightclubs, We're heading to Japan and spending
a night at Womb, the International superclub at the heart
of Tokyo. The History of the World's Greatest Nightclubs is
produced by Neon Harmed Media for London Audio and I
(43:00):
Heart Radio for London Audio. Our executive producers are Paris Hilton,
Bruce Robertson and Bruce gersh. The executive producer for Neon
Humm is Jonathan Hirsch. Our producer is Rufiro, Faith Masarua,
Navanni Ontaro and Liz Sanchez are our associate producers. Our
(43:23):
series producer is Crystal Genesis. Our editor is Stephanie Serrano.
Samantha Allison is our production manager and Alexis Martinez is
our production coordinator. This episode was written by Refiro, Faith
Masarua and fact checked by Katherine Neuhan. Theme and original
(43:43):
music by Asha Avanovitch. Our sound design engineers are Sam
Bear and Josh Han. I'm your host alternate and we'll
see you next time on the history of the world's
Greatest Nightclubs.
The music played and created inside some of the world's
greatest nightclubs has had a lasting impact on the communities
around them. Some music has gone on to serve as
a form of activism, reaching people around the world and
bringing them into a musical lineage that spans generations. Music
is powerful. It can shift culture and gives us the
(00:25):
tools we need to enact real change. So today we're
going to a club in Nigeria that politicized a whole
generation on the dance floor, a musical shrine inside of
a nightclub where people would listen to political protests hidden
in infectious melodies. When Ricky Stain first encountered the enigmatic
(00:50):
musician whose musical legacy would go on to span decades,
he was driving through the English countryside in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
That was in the back of a van on the
INFO Motorway, lying in a heap of African dancers, on
our way back from a gig.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Ricky worked in the music industry, coordinating dance troops and
musicians as they toured around the world, and he was
on the road when he first heard the song that
would change the trajectory of his life.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Somebody put on a cassette and it was sorrow, tears
and blood. Do you know that song?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Run Run Run?
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Some people lost some bad, some one nearly died, some
one jar has died.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
What list they come?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Run Run Run? Everybody's katata? And I was gobsmat, what
the hell? What is this?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
He instantly felt a connection to the music, the drums,
the horns, the infectious melody, and the story the song
was telling through its lyrics. Ricky had to know more.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I had an African music guru by the name of
Jumbo Van Rennon, and I went to see Jumbo and
I said, who's this guy.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Fella Fella Kootie was the artist behind the song. Ricky
didn't know it yet, but the reason why it sounded
so unique was because Fella had created a whole new
genre called Afrobeat. Jumbo gave Ricky some more music to
listen to, and he.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Went away and came back with his arm full of
these albums, which he scattered around on the floor. And
I was just staring at all these amazing, colorful album covers.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Afrobeat combined jazz, funk, and soul with inspiration from traditional
Yoruba music and West African high life. Creating an upbeat
sound filled with percussion, jazz horns, chanted vocals, and complex
toe tapping rhythms.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I just felt, I don't know, it's almost like I
felt he was talking to me. It was kind of crazy.
Slowly I started going through them and I just wanted
to meet this guy.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
You know, And soon enough he did. Fella was having
a concert in London and a friend of his invited
Ricky to meet Fella.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I sat down next to Fella and we just started
chatting and then I can't remember what I said. I
said something and he just spun around and looked at me,
and we both looked at each other and started laughing,
and that was the beginning of our friendship.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Fella was the kind of man who stood at the
center of attention in every room he stepped into, whose
infectious energy made everyone around him shine a little bit brighter.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
He was charismatic, what can I say. I think what
really attracted me immediately was this kind of candor. Everything
was just clear and straight and direct.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
They worked on a couple of projects together. Ricky booked
for festival he was organizing, and Fella agreed to join
the board of advisors. They moved in similar circles within
the African music scene, and then, during a trip to Nigeria,
Ricky visited the music venue that Fella called home for
the first time, the Africa Shrine. The Africa Shrine was
(04:20):
a nightclub, music venue, and community center. Fella would perform
there throughout the peak of his career to craft and
mold the jazzy but uniquely Nigerian sound he would become
known for Afrobeat. At two am, Ricky and Fella walked
past shops and bars until they reached a road called
(04:40):
Pepple Street, and when they did, they headed in the
direction of the joyful music floating out into the night.
They'd arrived at the Africa Shrine.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
And it was ran to the roftons.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Ricky was immediately engulfed by the music and allowed himself
to become swept up in the moment.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
The atmosphere was electric ministers, soldiers not in uniform, ragamuffins,
gangsters that be a total cross section of the community.
The band was already playing when we'd arrived. They've been
playing for hours. I immediately headed for the dance floor.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Ricky danced along to the band and took in the
joy on everybody's faces, marveling at the way they danced
with reckless abandon. The energy in the room was infectious.
It wasn't just a concert or a party. Ricky was
in the midst of a community celebration.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
A fellow would climb up on stage and the whole
thing would just take off. It was just magical, you know.
It was just a magical, wonderful I could almost say yeah,
I couldn't say spiritual experience. It was paradise for me.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
From London Audio iHeartRadio and executive producer Paris Hilton. This
is the History of the World's Greatest Nightclubs a twelve
part podcast about the iconic venues and people that revolutionized
how we party. Some of the world's most legendary nightclubs
(06:22):
were known for the unique community they welcomed, others for
the cultural movements they started, and some for the musicians
and DJs they introduced to the world. The best nightclubs
champion new music, transform lives, and provide an escape from
life's pressures. One more thing. This is the history of
some of the world's greatest nightclubs. Not a ranking of
(06:45):
every club in the world. It's an exploration of the spaces,
people and club nights that made a lasting impact on
nightlife and music. Today, I'm your host, Ultra Nate. I'm
a singer, songwriter music and I found my purpose in
club culture. This is Episode eleven. The Africa Shrine in Legos, Nigeria.
(07:09):
Felakuti was a musician, activist, and revolutionary voice in the
midst of one of the most politically turbulent eras in
Nigerian history. He pioneered the jazzy, soulful but uniquely West
African sound afrobeat, and his legacy inspired the creation of
the modern musical genre Afrobeats with an s. Fella's musical
(07:33):
testing ground, political pulpit and spiritual home was a nightclub
he created in Legos, The Africa Shrine, a venue at
the heart of his community that will welcome presidents, be
burnt to the ground by the military, set the stage
for some of his greatest performances, and inspires some of
his most legendary songs. For a club like The Shrine
(08:03):
to paint a legacy that would last over fifty years,
it needed a fierce leader. Fela Kuti was born on
October fifteenth in a town just fifty miles north of
the Nigerian capital, Legos. It was nineteen thirty eight. Nigeria
was under the rule of the colonial British Empire and
would be until just two weeks before Fella's twenty second birthday.
(08:28):
But Fella's political awakening began long before Nigeria's independence. Fella's
father was a pastor who stood against British colonial rule,
and his mother was a fierce activist who organized marches
to advocate for women's rights, So it was no surprise
that Fella would go on to become one of the
(08:48):
country's most prominent political voices. Fella's parents were politically active,
but he'd also come from a long line of musicians.
Speaker 5 (08:58):
My name is Jennie and Nikoloko.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
I am the first child and first daughter of Fella.
My father was born into a legacy. My great grandfather
was a musician. Then my grandfather was a musician even
though he was a referend as well. Then he Fela,
who was another huge legist, seven generations of musicians.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Even though Fela came from a musically gifted family, his
parents wanted a stable future for him, so they sent
him to the UK to become a doctor in the
late nineteen fifties, but not long after he arrived in England,
Fella decided to study music instead, and then he started
his first band, Fella Ransom Cootie and his High Life Rakers.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
And his music was loved I mean by the people
who heard it in Nigeria and elsewhere in the world
as time went by.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
He was inspired by high life and the traditional Yoruba
music he'd heard grown up in Nigeria, and the American jazz,
funk and soul he'd heard and studied while he was abroad.
Fella brought together his favorite elements of both, put his
own unique spin on them, and created a new genre, Afrobeat.
(10:16):
Buffella didn't just want to make music for dancing and celebration.
Fellow wanted to make music with lyrics that felt like
rallying cries.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Fella was the greatest proponent of communication by virtue of
music and used his music as a weapon to attack
any form of coingestice, social injustice, or corruption.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Nigeria had won its independence in nineteen sixty, Buffella had
a lot of issues with the Nigerian government that had
replaced colonial rule, so he used music to share his
political message.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
You know. I see his music as it was like
a chariot. I describe it as a chariot which his
message could write, because the message was really talking about
the things that needed to be talked about, naming names,
talking about corruption, mismanagement in a way that was so
(11:13):
attractive to people because it had this amazing beat behind it.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
His music directly called the government out, but Fella executed
it with so much joy and soul that the message
quickly reached a wide audience.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
So even if you're not listening to the words, you're
bump into the music. You can't help yourself, and the
words you'll find yourself singing them.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
That's what made each of his songs feel so powerful.
They were vibrant musical acts of resistance. As Fella looked
around at the corruption, the hoarded wealth, and government officials
who lived lavish lives while ordinary Nigerian suffered, he started
to speak and sing with even more precision.
Speaker 7 (11:55):
It was like criticizing so many things about government. My
name is Mabiinori Kayode Ido, but everybody calls me id.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
In nineteen seventy four, a friend invited ID to a
gathering at Fella's house. When they met they locked eyes.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
His eyes came one on one on me.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
You know, ID hadn't met Fella before, but everybody in
Lego's New Fella. He was one of the most famous
people in Nigeria. So Id was starstruck.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
For me.
Speaker 7 (12:32):
Was the last thing I expected that, you know, I
here he was talking to me direct. You know, I
didn't know how to reply easily. The only thing that
came to my mind was no, sir.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
It felt like the right thing to say.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Nigerian culture had raised Id to respect his elders, so
in the middle of the conversation, he called Fella sir.
Speaker 7 (12:56):
And you know, it was like putting a patrol in
fire because Fela busted out.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Nobody in this house addresses me like sir. My name
is Fella, you call it fella.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Fella hated the idea of treating people with deference just
because of who they were, whether that was an elder,
a soldier, or a famous musician. So he told Idea that.
Speaker 7 (13:20):
Was explaining a relationship between DJ, the younger generation and
the older generation of Africans.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
You know, in our society, how they teach us to buy.
Speaker 7 (13:31):
Through fear to respect older folks instead of creating natural
respect between between the older folks and the younger.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
But this discussion went on like for like three.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Hours, you know, and they quickly built up a friendly rapport.
So Fellas started to ask Ida about his life.
Speaker 7 (13:51):
I did, what are your plans for the future, and
I said, oh, I want to go to the university
to study philosophy or history. And then he started to
pick my all, you want to go and study all
those Socrates, Aristotle and I felt, oh, yes, I am
on a equaled grounds with him.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Let's just say Fella had a lot to say about
European philosophy. So he spent the rest of the night
teaching Id about afrocentrism, the Black Power movement, and the
African history they hadn't been taught at school. That conversation
completely changed the trajectory of Id's life. He was enrolled
(14:32):
to start college at the University of Nigeria, but what
Fella taught him made him question everything.
Speaker 7 (14:39):
That's why today, if there's anything I oughte to you
a fella, I think I owe him the fact that
he gave me political and historical consciousness. So all this
kind of opened my mind my vision, I said, f
U C. K Nigerian University.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
He wasn't the only young person to have a political
awakening after speaking to Fella and hearing his lyrics. Fellow
was encouraging young people to question the systems that govern them,
to reject the status quo and think for themselves, to
be independent and to seek freedom in every area of
their lives. He literally had a song called Teacher, Don't
(15:22):
teach Me Nonsense calling out the education system. And it
wasn't long before the authorities that Fellow was speaking out
against started to feel threatened by him. Id still remembers
a warning and acquaintance of theirs gave him.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
You know what he said.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
He said, tell the brother to be careful because the
word within the high government circles is that they had
to do something to stop Fellow because all the youths
are dressing the way he dresses, smoking what he smokes,
and beginning.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
To react like him.
Speaker 7 (15:57):
And if they don't stop him, he could become a
revolution in the country.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Buffella's music, his conversations, his lectures, and the community surrounding
him didn't have a home for a while. Fella played
regular gigs at a venue called Kakadoo Nightclub, but the
owner banned him from performing because he was scared of
government retaliation. Buffella had an ally in a club owner,
(16:26):
Chief Canoe.
Speaker 7 (16:28):
Chief Canon owned another nightclub was called Empire Hotel.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
At that time, the Empire Hotel hosted a bunch of
different traveling bands in the sixties.
Speaker 7 (16:40):
All the big bands, even Ghana bands, you know round
Blas Dance band et Menser.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
So they welcomed the chance to have Fella create his
own venue there in a heartbeat.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Why don't you bring your club home?
Speaker 7 (16:53):
You live just fifteen meters away from and Fela I said, oh,
you take a good idea.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
It was so close to Fella's home that he traveled
there in an unconventional way.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
He used to ride from his house to the club
and a donkey at a leisurely paced on the middle
of the road blocking all the traffic with huge crowds
cheering fell about me chief priest until he got to
the club.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Fella built an open air venue in the courtyard of
the former Empire Hotel, but it needed a new name,
so Fella re christened it and named it the Shrine.
He named it the Shrine because it wasn't just a
music venue. It was a spiritual place and a political
platform that would go on to encompass the values that
(17:42):
were so deeply intertwined with his community and who he was.
Fella had been raised as the son of a pastor,
and as he got older, he began to embrace elements
of the traditional Yoruba spirituality. Here's his daughter Yenni again.
Speaker 6 (17:57):
From there his science to develop his Africanism, his spiritual ideology.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
He built a religious shrine inside the venue, complete with candles, statues,
names of spirits, and an altar.
Speaker 6 (18:12):
It not became more of a place of worship, not
just a place to perform, but a place of worship.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
That's why on Saturdays he worshiped at the shrine before
any performance.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
He had to prepare spiritually before he could bring his
all musically.
Speaker 7 (18:29):
And that was why you always hear him. See, my
music is not for entertainment. My music is to spread
the message.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
And that was most evident on Friday nights at the shrine.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Friday night was Yabies night, where a fellow used to
banter with the audience, in fact encourage the audience to
talk about issues of the day.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
On Yabis nights, he'd welcome talks about politics in the
state of modern day Nigeria. The audience was made up
of regular members of the community, from tea teatures to shopkeepers,
farmers to students. It was like a weekly town hall
with music, and the discussions Fella had at those Yabist
nights served as the inspiration for some of his greatest songs.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Discussions that were held in the shrine were give him
ideas and he would go and write the lyrics, come
back in and stop, you know, the process of recording.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
And one of the songs that was inspired by those
Yabist knights at the Shrine set the trajectory of the
rest of Fella's life. It was the song Zombie.
Speaker 7 (19:33):
Feil I released The Zombie in seventy six, and I
mean the album was really a big success all over Nigeria.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
It had an infectious rhythm and the kind of beat
that made you want to get up and dance, but
it was also very political.
Speaker 7 (19:48):
Fell I described the night drum military as they're walking dead,
you know, zombies.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Listen to the lyrics Zombi zbi zombie, no go think
unless you tell him to think. The song compared the
(20:17):
military to zombies, zombies who went around obeying orders without thinking.
The lyrics were purposefully provocative because to Fella, the military
with just political puppets, and he wasn't afraid to say so.
Speaker 7 (20:32):
The military, they are not there to protect the people,
but the protects power.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Fella already had enemies in high places for his outspoken personality,
but releasing a catchy, upbeat earworm of a song with
politically charged lyrics was even bolder. And it wasn't long
before people all across the country were singing along, inspired
to fight back, to stand up for their rights. But
(20:59):
that song put a target on Fella's back. The authorities
decided that they had had enough of Fella and the
influence the music coming out of the Shrine was having
on young Nigerians, and on February eighteenth, nineteen seventy seven,
Id was at the shrine working on a political newspaper
that he and Fella started.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
I was just like trying to sit down when I
heard the big noise.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
There had allegedly been a fight between a soldier and
one of Fella's drivers, so the soldier had gone to
Fella's house to confront the driver, but he'd returned with
backup and things escalated quickly.
Speaker 7 (21:39):
I came out, and so more so just we're I'm
beginning to arrive on the spot. And then before we
knew it, we just saw about it as armed with
all counters of Weport blocking all the streets.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
ID watched as Fella tried to call out for help,
but the soldiers had begun their attack. A thousand soldiers,
those quote unquote zombies had surrounded Fella's house and the shrine,
and that day they carried out a full military attack
on dozens of civilians.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
They beat everybody of sixty two. Please on fire.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Remember the song that Ricky heard at the start of
the episode, Sorrow, Tears and Blood. Fella released that song
not long after the attack in nineteen seventy seven, and
that's what the scene at Fella's home and the shrine
that day was Sorrow, tears and blood. It was a
brutal attack. People were arrested. The soldiers violently beat dozens
(22:42):
of residents up, and in an act of pure cruelty,
they threw Fella's seventy seven year old mother out of
a second floor window.
Speaker 6 (22:51):
This is Familia, Oh flops our blood for this cone
three on this tree.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
The governments.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
That adult Windo.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
She died soon after. Fella was beaten up until he
was unconscious. Then they poured highly flammable liquid all over
the shrine, set a match and burned it to the ground.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
And he did everything to stop him.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
Filler from were spread.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
In the message.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Fella didn't perform in Nigeria again for a while. The
shrine had been burned down, and almost every other venue
in the country was terrified of the intimidation and retaliation
they might face if they hosted a Fella concert. But
while they'd attacked him, hurt his friends, and killed one
of the people he loved the most, the authorities couldn't
(23:48):
beat Fella into submission or scare him into silence, because
the musical, spiritual, and political fire that ran through every
element of Fella's life was fire that just couldn't be
put out, and the shrine it would have a second life.
(24:10):
After the shrine burned down, Fella spent two years touring
the world and singing songs that inspired people to reevaluate
the truths they had been told and the systems that
governed them. Because Fella carried a spirit of activism through
everything he did. When he returned to Nigeria, he decided
to reclaim his place as one of the most thrilling
(24:32):
performers in the country by opening a new shrine. But
this time he built it from the ground up. He
bought a plot of land on Pepple Street, created a
new venue and named it the Africa Shrine. The Africa
Shrine wasn't just a music venue. It was a community
(24:54):
center too.
Speaker 6 (24:55):
People who are down on laut or think that they're
down a an or think they don't have any where
to go.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Their first photo of police to shrine.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
The shrine created jobs for dozens of local Legotians. It
was free entry for most of the week and if
people didn't have a safe roof to sleep under, the
shrine welcomed them with open arms.
Speaker 6 (25:14):
I mean, we have eve thought someone from Rwanda before
during the wand of war.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
He was a refugee during the Rwanda genocide in nineteen
ninety four.
Speaker 6 (25:24):
It was the very nicest guy. I still remember. He
lived at the shrine for a couple of years.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
The Africa Shrine stood at the center of its community.
Fella mapped out a weekly schedule with the community in mind.
Fella performed there around four times a week, but each
night had its own specific community oriented focus.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Sunday Jump was particularly designed for students so that they
could sneak out back to campus before the prefets came calling.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
It was a day when families could bring their children
to enjoy the music too.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
The timing six to ten pm.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Then there was Tuesday.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Tuesday was Ladies' Night. In other words, ladies could come
in free or that their boyfriends had to pay.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Fridays were still yabish nights where Fellow would welcome social
and political conversations. And then came Saturday.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Saturday Night was the comprehensive show. That was when the
musicians wore costumes and Fella presented a choreographed dance stage
performance with all of the dancers and singers. I mean,
every night was just the same magic. You know.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Despite ongoing political intimidation and resistance to the message he
was trying to share, Fella just kept on making music.
Over the course of his life, Feller released over fifty albums,
not fifteen fifty five zero. Music flowed through his veins,
and on Saturday Nights he brought that musical mastery onto stage.
(26:58):
Those nights were a spe because Fellow was a legendary performer,
a true master of his craft.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Sound check, he would personally tune every instrument, which is
quite unusual for enough, but he knew what it was
he wanted to listen to.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
He would perform for hours at a time with a
full band and a whole troop of dancers. And when
he performed at the Africa Shrine, it was almost always
new unreleased music because the Africa Shrine was his musical
testing ground for new ideas.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
In the shrine during in the afternoon, it'd be one
hundred or so the real efficionados. He would develop the song.
Once the song was developed, he started to play it
in the shrine and he would singing it for maybe
a month, two months, three months.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Trying out new musical compositions and instruments to different crowds
at the Africa Shrine until he tailored the song to perfection.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
But then he'd said, how many times can I sing
about Margaret Thatcher. He would then go into the studio
to record, and once that song which recorded, that was
it the song bye Bye.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Once a song was solidified, recorded and released on an album,
that was it. He was on to the next thing.
Speaker 6 (28:24):
You come to him.
Speaker 7 (28:27):
By the record, Oh Tella play me, lady said, oh
go on by the record.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Do you know which made each night at the Africa
Shrine feel even more special? It was new music. It
was a fleeting experience. It was like being a member
of a secret club. So people from all around the
world would come to watch Fellow perform at the Africa Shrine,
including Stevie Wonder, Bootsie Collins, and James Brown's band. Even
(29:01):
a former member of the Beatles left the Africa Shrine
feeling inspired.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yeah, well, according to Paul.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
And by Paul, Ricky means Paul McCartney.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
He said, but when he started the band started to play,
I cried, I wept, He said, I never heard any
band in the world anything like this before.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
For Fella's birthday, Ricky asked musicians who loved him to
talk about their favorite songs, and Paul got back to
him and said, I.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Don't remember the name of this song, but I remember
the riff, and he's talking about something thirty five years earlier,
and he played this riff.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Here's the clip of Paul trying to remember that song
he'd heard Fella play over thirty five years ago.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
So this is why I remember from the Shrine. But
the riff was definitely this.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Yeah, I never know.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Sha, and I immediately knew which song it was while
black men they suffered. In fact, I sent it to him.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
That's the thing about the Africa Shrine. The music people
heard there really struck them. It was spiritual. It got
into their bones, made them sing, made them think, gave
them a new perspective on the world. Yennikootie, Fella's daughter
grew up spending nights at the Africa Shrine, and she
(30:25):
really felt the spirituality of her father's performances there.
Speaker 6 (30:30):
When Fella was alive, I went to the Shrine at
least once a week, sometimes.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Twice, to watch him dancing across the stage, commanding the
audience's attention and creating an atmosphere that pulled people out
onto the dance floor and connected them to a higher power.
Speaker 6 (30:46):
I'd seen Phila from the early performances when I was
a kid, when he was young and danced and firebrand,
to when he got older.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
And slawer.
Speaker 5 (31:00):
What's still enigmatic.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Over the course of his life, Fellow was arrested two
hundred times, spent twenty months in prison, and was banned
from contesting in Nigeria's presidential election, but Phelip persisted and
played his spiritual political music at the Africa Shrine for
the rest of his life until life caught up with him.
(31:23):
He died in nineteen ninety seven from complications related to AIDS.
He was only fifty eight, but his children grew up
watching his speeches and musical performances at the Africa Shrine,
and the values their father taught them stuck with them.
Speaker 5 (31:40):
Integrity.
Speaker 6 (31:42):
Integrity is I think one of the most important spirituality
knowing who you are.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
So much of knowing who you are is knowing where
you came from and passing that legacy down to future generations.
It's a heavy task to carry, but when Fella died,
his children knew that continuing the legacy of their father's
music and the Africa Shrine was one of the greatest
ways that they could honor their father.
Speaker 6 (32:12):
I don't think the Creator is wicked, so what they
put on your lap is what you can't do.
Speaker 5 (32:18):
So I think that this task that I've been.
Speaker 6 (32:22):
Given is not beyond me, and I do enjoy of
folding that legacy.
Speaker 5 (32:31):
I enjoy it and I believe it's my shoot.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
When Fella died in nineteen ninety seven. His eldest daughter, Yennikouti,
along with his eldest son Femi Kuti, decided they wanted
to keep the Africa Shrine and Fella's physical legacy alive,
but they ran into a problem.
Speaker 6 (32:57):
The funny thing about the Old Africa Shrive was that Fella.
Speaker 5 (33:01):
Had built it.
Speaker 6 (33:02):
He had paid for a lease on the land and
the lease was I think maybe twenty years. By the
time he died, the lease had expired, but he built
the shrine, so the building was his. The land belonged
to this family and lost fellow that wanted to retain.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
It, but the original owners of the land refused, saying
that the land wouldn't be passed down to the Cootie family.
Speaker 5 (33:25):
We begged them, we offered them monthly. They wanted their
land back.
Speaker 6 (33:30):
I think they were just bent on killing the dream
and killing the everytage.
Speaker 5 (33:34):
They had this thing against Fellas, so they were just
like Lo Lo lo.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
They tried everything.
Speaker 6 (33:40):
Since people we went to ourselves. We did everything to
try and get them to let us keep the shrine,
and they didn't.
Speaker 5 (33:53):
We just said, okay, let's cut our losses, let's go
and look for land.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
They decided to build a new shrine and traveled around
Legos looking for a plot of land to call home.
But they couldn't just build it anywhere. It had to
be special.
Speaker 6 (34:12):
My brother was going around looking for the land, and
every time you would call say I found this place,
and he will call me.
Speaker 5 (34:17):
He said, come on and see this one. I'll just
say no, this one is not it.
Speaker 6 (34:22):
And we found one piece and it was okay, but
it was not perfect.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
I was like, hey, it's okay, but let's still be looking.
And he got angry.
Speaker 7 (34:31):
Why are you going, George?
Speaker 6 (34:35):
I said, sorry, I just wondered. He said, oh, he
found this piece of land as you come. And I
went there and I saw this piece of land and
I said.
Speaker 5 (34:45):
This is it. This is perfect. This is the shrine
and the rest is history. People came with all types
of ideas, you know.
Speaker 6 (34:56):
This exotic fountain and these and that. We said, no,
what you want is what's the old shrine. What we
did is try and recreate that spiritual feeling that you
had when you went to the old shrine.
Speaker 5 (35:13):
That's the feeling of coming hood, that feeling of I'm
very comfortable here. This is a comfortable space.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
So they painted the building with bright colors.
Speaker 5 (35:23):
Orange and yellow colors. Those are my father's favorite colors.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
And they covered the walls with Fella's messages.
Speaker 6 (35:30):
I used to go to a lot of my father's lectures,
and you know the one Africani isn't the one being
African and proud at being black and proud.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
So they took snippets from those lectures and quotes their
father loved and had artists paint the words onto the walls.
Speaker 6 (35:47):
Man who doesn't look where he's coming from will not
know where he's at or where he's going.
Speaker 5 (35:53):
Fear is not for man.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
But they didn't just feature the feel good, inspiring quotes.
They chose the deeply political ones too, like scathing criticisms
Fella had about the former Nigerian president.
Speaker 5 (36:06):
I want to say, is a fool, and so we
have that for.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Sterits Fellas spent his whole life inspired by other black
activists who his children wanted to honor too, So they
hung photos of the giants whose shoulders their father had
stood on.
Speaker 6 (36:25):
We have Malchael Meggs, we have Michael Scove, we have
Kwame and Kumar, Martin, Luther King, Tomas Sankara Fella.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Befella's political legacy wasn't just songs and quotes. Throughout his life,
he and the Africa Shrine were the target of violent
attacks and unfair closures. So when his children opened the
New Africa Shrine, that became a target. Two.
Speaker 5 (36:57):
It was really hard.
Speaker 6 (36:58):
A couple of times the shuttles out of the shrine,
they locked the doors and didn't let us go in.
Speaker 5 (37:03):
It was very hard.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
The authorities would find petty reasons to shut the club down.
They said it was too loud or there were too
many people inside.
Speaker 6 (37:12):
So it was really a difficult because you know a
lot of people survived from the shripe. So when you
look at you remove the food from a lot of
mouths in a lot of mouths one hundreds.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
But after a few years of being open and making
it clear that they weren't going anywhere, the New Africa
Shrine began to thrive under the ownership of Fella's children.
They opened the New Africa Shrine in two thousand.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
It's just imbued with Fellaw's spirit. It's just that there's
this feeling in the air. I take people that have
never been there before, and then I turned around to
look at the person that I've brought and they're just
standing there with their mouth open.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
These brothers have continued their father's musical legacy. Fami Coutie,
Fella's oldest son, performs on Sundays, Sean Couti, Fella's youngest son,
performs on the last Saturday of every month, and Fella's grandson,
mad Day, performs there on the last Friday of every month.
Speaker 5 (38:19):
It makes me happy. I cry, especially when I watch
my nephew. Makes me cry because.
Speaker 6 (38:26):
First of all, my parents are as alive to see him,
and I wish they were. Secondly, I just watched the
legacy boy and he just my heart sows, brings tears
to my eyes.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
The shrine has also inspired a new generation.
Speaker 5 (38:44):
A lot of young musicians. A lot of young musicians.
Speaker 6 (38:48):
It's their dream to perform, you know, because they feel
that that is where their career has to be launched.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Fellow pioneer the genre afrobeat, the soulful, jazzy, high life
inspired music we've been listening to throughout this story, but
what Fella created went on to inspire the modern musical
genre Afrobeats with an S.
Speaker 8 (39:13):
Chances are if you have listened to rapper pop station
today you have heard some afrobeat songs. The genre exported
from Africa is now burning up the charts, but some
of the songs now popular came out months or even
years ago.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Afrobeats is the genre of popular contemporary West African music
that skyrocketed into the charts over the past few years
with songs like Fall by Davido, Essence by Thames and
whiz Kid, and Last Last by burn A Boy. In fact,
some of those musicians got their first big shot at
(39:46):
the New Africa Shrine.
Speaker 6 (39:48):
Now Video's first performance where he became nonimals at the Shrine.
You know he came the first year and he begged
climb on stage. And by the next year he was a.
Speaker 5 (40:01):
And he came.
Speaker 6 (40:02):
He says, yes, I beg last to coom and said,
now you're begging me to come on stage.
Speaker 5 (40:05):
Whiz Kid, whis Kid came on. He was a backup
singer today look at him.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
And Berna Boy had one of his early performances there.
Speaker 5 (40:14):
I remember Bona Boys first performance.
Speaker 6 (40:16):
His grandfather called me, I want my grandsons to play
at the Shrine.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Afrobeats sounds quite different to the afro beat that Fella created.
You can hear more hip hop and R and B
influences in it, and it's not as political as Fella's
music was. But the sound that Fella created still lives
on in the music. Fella came from a long line
of musicians, and after his death, that baton just continued
(40:42):
to pass down from generation to generation, inspiring young musicians
to put their own twist on it. As his music
continued to reach new listeners around the globe.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
And you know, on many occasions have been in a
position to introduce some fellas music that hasn't heard it before,
and it's always the same thing. They're just hooked immediately.
I've never met anybody that says, oh, yeah, it wasn't all. No,
it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. I mean, music is
(41:16):
an extraordinary means of communication, isn't it one that we
I think need in our lives.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Fella's legacy lives on through the music. The sound he
created at the Africa Shrine has been passed down across generations,
influencing new styles and genres, and the fiercely political stance
he took in his lyrics continues to inspire people in
Nigeria and around the world. His song Beasts of No
(41:44):
Nation became a rallying cry for a wave of protests
in Nigeria in twenty twenty. Legacy is something that Yenni
and her siblings think about a lot as they teach
their family about the rich heritage they came from.
Speaker 5 (42:01):
You know, this is your grandfather. You are born into
a very great legacy, you know.
Speaker 6 (42:06):
So I think it's important that we start talking to
our children, our grandchildren, so that they understand the power
and the responsibility of that legacy.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
So the Kuti's siblings have put it in their wills
that nobody can sell the new Africa Shrine, that it
will be passed down through the Kouti family line.
Speaker 6 (42:25):
I hope that they will know the kind of legacy
that they have been born into and they will continue
that legacy.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
Africa Shrine must remain for generations to come.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
In the next and final episode of the History of
the World's Greatest Nightclubs, We're heading to Japan and spending
a night at Womb, the International superclub at the heart
of Tokyo. The History of the World's Greatest Nightclubs is
produced by Neon Harmed Media for London Audio and I
(43:00):
Heart Radio for London Audio. Our executive producers are Paris Hilton,
Bruce Robertson and Bruce gersh. The executive producer for Neon
Humm is Jonathan Hirsch. Our producer is Rufiro, Faith Masarua,
Navanni Ontaro and Liz Sanchez are our associate producers. Our
(43:23):
series producer is Crystal Genesis. Our editor is Stephanie Serrano.
Samantha Allison is our production manager and Alexis Martinez is
our production coordinator. This episode was written by Refiro, Faith
Masarua and fact checked by Katherine Neuhan. Theme and original
(43:43):
music by Asha Avanovitch. Our sound design engineers are Sam
Bear and Josh Han. I'm your host alternate and we'll
see you next time on the history of the world's
Greatest Nightclubs.
Host
Ultra Naté
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