Fela Kuti in Colombia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champeta

Listening to the Palenque Palenque: Champeta Criolla & Afro Roots in Colombia compilation album refreshed my memory of Fela Kuti's influence. His afrobeat style was incorporated into the already heterogeneous mix of Colombian coastal music styles like cumbia, American funk, soukous, highlife, zouk, compas and other Caribbean/Latin music (all these styles are also African-derived themselves to varying degrees). So the entire album is essentially a pan-African, pan-Caribbean music feast showcasing Colombian groups from Cartagena and Barranquilla from 1975-91. Champeta, a dance music of Afro-Colombians practiced in these aforementioned coastal cities likely developed from this musical miscegenation of trans-Atlantic forms as well as local African-influenced genres like cumbia.

The Colombian cover of Fela Kuti's "Shakara" is a good example of how black artists from Africa and the Diaspora influenced each other's music, art, dance, instrumentation, and ideology. Though not instrumental like Fela Kuti's original, the Colombian "Shacalao" does follow Kuti's song closely. Thank le Bon Dieu for the Colombian record collector from Bogota who held onto all these old records from this golden age of Colombian costeno music. Indeed, his collection of records demonstrates how music transcends racial, ethnic and geographic barriers. Moreover, some of the song material on the album reflect a black consciousness movement in music by black artists by artists from Brazil, the US, Africa, and the Caribbean. Songs like "Quiero a Mi Gente" or the names of groups such as Wganda Kenya reflect a transnational black solidarity.

In fact, Colombia has the 3rd largest black population in the Americas after Brazil and the US, but Afro-Colombians' relative invisibility in the nation is a result of racist, exclusive national image of mestizo and Spanish identities, in addition to the overall mixed descent of Afro-Colombians themselves. Proclaiming a "black" identity in a nation where Afro-Colombians are divided along regional lines and often only partly of African descent has been a hindrance in organizing against anti-black racism and prejudice. Nevertheless, certain regions of Colombia, a nation in spite of itself due to a long history of regionalism, are racialized as black, like El Choco on the Pacific or the Atlantic coast, where Cartagena and Barranquilla are situated. Cartagena, interestingly, was the largest slave market in the Spanish Americas for centuries, thus, it is hardly a surprise that the Caribbean coast has a markedly Afro-Caribbean flavor. Another interesting fact: the word palenque refers to the runaway slave communities established by enslaved Africans during the colonial period in Colombia. Naming this compilation in honor to the maroons of the past is another stark example of a black consciousness-raising in the popular dance music of Cartagena and Barranquilla's large Afro-Colombian populations. However, one must keep in mind that this popular music in a mixed population does not necessarily make all these artists Afro-Colombian or 'black.'

Fela Kuti's original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR2LYxkLuQg&ob=av2n
Lizandro Meza y Su Conjunto: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p5C6wpy04A
Another cover of "Shakara" from Colombia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz67nw3y8M4
Abelardo Carbono's "Quiero a Mi Gente" has funky chicken-scratching guitar riffs could easily be afrobeat or even American funk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLvMediR_og
Abelardo Carbono's "Palenque" sounds African: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=bLu4B6tokVM
Another good song from the album: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kdlB1xVcoU