GARVEY LIVES!
MOSIAH LIVES!
The Mosiah month continues with the next community session Amy Jacques Garvey: The Warrior Woman on Tuesday 15th Mosiah (Aug) | 7pm – 10pm@ Mama Afrika Kulcha Shap, 282 High Road Leyton E10 5PW, delivered by Queen Mother Nzingha Assata, Author of “Women in the Garvey Movement (https://www.alkebulan.org/mosiah/).
Later in the month, Mosiah Storm, the seasons edutainment extragavanza will feature a tribute to the “greatest exponent of revolutionary Afrikan music,” Fela Anikulapo-Kuti taking place on Saturday 26th Mosiah (https://www.alkebulan.org/mosiahstorm/).
Twenty years ago this month (03/08/1997) music legend and cultural commentator Fela Anikulapo-Kuti “The Black President” passed into the Ancestral Realm. Famed for being the innovator of the music genre known as Afrobeat, although he had his own misgivings about the term (1), his music was a seamless mix of intergenerational continental expressions fused with global Afrikan creative artistry:
“Art is what is happening at a particular time of a people’s development or under development. So I think as far as Afrika is concerned, music cannot be for enjoyment, music has to be for revolution” (2)
In both form and content, Fela, through his groups Africa 70 and Egypt 80 advanced a Pan-Afrikan vision where he advocated the restoration of Afrikan traditions and culture as an antidote to the prevailing colonial and neo-colonial conditions. While it is acknowledged that Fela Kuti’s time in the USA during the Black Power era of the late 1960s, particularly meeting young activist Sis. Sandra Izsadore, transformed the orientation of his music (3), the influence of his revolutionary mother should not be underestimated.
Fela Kuti’s mother Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti took him with her to anti-colonial protests that she organised in Abeokuta in the late 1940s. He was emboldened by he fearless confrontations with colonial officials. In one vivid example she threatened to cut off the genitals of a surly British official and post them back to his mother. (4)
Mama Funmilayo was a well informed, well traveled activist. journeying extensively, inside the continent (e.g. Cameroon, Benin, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Togoand) as well as to Europe(Austria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, England, Germany, Hungary) and China. In 1949 Mama Funmilayo met with Mama Amy Ashwood Garvey in Abeokuta and subsequently sought to affiliate the Nigerian Women’s Union, that she co-founded with the UNIA-ACL Women’s Corps. (5)
On his return of Afrika from the USA Fela changed the name of his group from the Koola Lobitos to Africa 70. A necessary part of his new message of Afrikan redemption was, like his mother, taking aim squarely at the “colonial mentality,” not just in Nigeria but across the continent. Such a stance was not without it’s risks. Fela, his entourage, his wives, his mother endured state sponsored harassment, arrests, imprisonment and numerous acts of brutality. Probably the most notorious instance being the 1,000 soldier attack on the Fela’s compound on February 18 1977. An orgy of violence ensued, rapes and beatings, during which Mama Funmilayo was thrown out of a first floor window (ultimately leading to her death), with the whole compound being razed to the ground. (6)
Undeterred, Fela continued his artistic broadsides against the regime with stinging numbers like Zombie, Sorrow, Tears and Blood and Fear Not For Man.
A natural outgrowth was for Fela to start his own political party, Movement Of The People (M.O.P.) in 1978 to formalise not only his critique of the successive authoritarian regimes (”soja go, soja come”) but also to advance his mission to elevate Afrikan culture, values and mores. The party’s logo was a clenched fist imposed on a background of red, black and green. (7) Fela later espoused his vision for the continent:
“Pan-Afrikanism is in the minds of everybody now, subconsciously. Everybody knows they have to be Afrikans now. Everybody knows Afrikans to be united now, to have any headway. But I see a future. I see a future in my own political party. If I can take this country then Afrika is settled. Once there’s a good government in one Afrikan country, the whole of Afrika will be liberated. So with any one good government, straight and progressive, clean government that knows what it’s doing. No diplomacy, no compromises, no Marxism-Leninists, no capitalism – Afrikanism.” (8)
International collaborations followed throughout the 80s, most notably with Roy Ayers (Africa, Centre Of The World), Wally Badarou (Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense) and Dennis Bovell (original Army Arrangement sessions) (9). His output dropped off considerably during the 1990s, although a tour of the UK was planned at the time of his passing – reportedly from AIDS, although those close to Fela, such as widow Mama Oghenekevwe Anikulapo-Kuti, strongly dispute this, instead suggesting that he was a victim of ”government espionage.” (10)
Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, was one the few high profile artists that resolutely spoke truth to power, whatever the cost, placing him alongside the likes of Nina Simone and Peter Tosh (the 30th anniversary of whose death is next month).
As with all of them, while the music lives on, even straddling racial divides (11) , purveyors of the message seem to be harder to find. One factor in this might be the current strength (or lack thereof) of the transitory and revolutionary elements that helped propel the likes of Nina, Fela and Tosh (e.g. Civil Rights, Black Power/Pan-Afrikanism, Rastafari).
(1) Sola Olorunyomi (2003) Afrobeat: Fela and the Imagined Continent. Afrika World Press. p. xiii. The author states, “In a 1992 interview I had with him, Fela denounced the nomenclature as a meaningless commercial nonsense with which recording labels exploited the artist,”
(2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn4NaL_10VE
(3) Carlos Moore (2010) Fela: This Bitch Of A Life. Omnibus Press. p. 85
(4) Raisa Simola (1999) The Construction of a Nigerian Nationalist and Feminist, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti. Nordic Journal of African Studies 8(1): 94-114.
(5) Cheryl Johnson-Odim (2009) I‘For their freedoms’: The anti-imperialist and international feminist activity of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti of Nigeria. Women’s Studies International Forum 32. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223171672_%27For_their_freedoms%27_The_anti-imperialist_and_international_feminist_activity_of_Funmilayo_Ransome-Kuti_of_Nigeria
(6) Moore, Op. Cit. pp. 137-140
(7) Michael E Veal (2000) Fela: The Life & Times of an African Musical Icon. Temple University Press. p. 169.
(8) Jean-Jacques Flori, Stéphane Tchalgadjief (1982) Music Is the Weapon. France 2 (FR2), K.I.C.S, Ministère de la Culture
(9) Veal Op. Cit. p. 209.
(10) Daily Times Nigeria (29/03/15) Fela Did Not Die of AIDS, Widow Insists. https://dailytimes.ng/headlines/fela-did-not-die-of-aids-widow-insists/
(11) Atane Ofiaja (07/11/13) Afrobeat and whiteness – a tale of entitlement. https://thisisafrica.me/lifestyle/afrobeat-whiteness-tale-entitlement/
we ask the question:
Do we still get a message in the music?
Which Mosiah events have you attended/will you be attending?
Are you familiar with Fela Kuti’s music?
How important was Fela Kuti’s mother in the development of his worldview?
Are artists of the orientation like Nina, Fela and Tosh gone forever?
Can only a fully blown Garveyite Movement put the message back in the music?
Or are the current artists doing a worthy job?
Our very special guests:
Bro. Ldr. Mbandaka: Resident guest who is Spiritual Leader of the Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement and UNIA-ACL Ambassador for the UK and national co-Chair of the interim National Afrikan People’s Parliament. Bro. Ldr is a veteran activist of over 30 years standing, a featured columnist in The Whirlwind newspaper and author of Mosiah Daily Affirmations and Education: An African-Centred Guide To Excellence.
Kolade Kolla Ogunbayode: Dubbed “the best Yoruba teacher in London” Master Kola is custodian of the language and is founder of Learn Yoruba in London (MKYCC). It is a not for profit community service set up to educate adults and children of Pan Afrikan descent on Yorùbá language, heritage, culture and values with the aim of boosting cultural identity and confidence. MKYCC’s motto is “Informing Afrikan descendants of their ancestral tongue and culture.”