Cuban-Nigerian Musical Exchanges: Fela Kuti and Beny Moré

Cuban legend of 1950s music, Beny Moré, recorded "Babarabatiri," a song meant to evoke Cuba's African musical and cultural heritage, also covered by Tito Puente. The horn line sounds very similar to a particular Fela Kuti song from his afrobeat, period, "Shakara," which has a remarkably similar horn line. It's very likely a coincidence, but given the considerable influence of Cuban son, mambo, and son montuno in West Africa, I wouldn't be surprised if Fela Kuti had perhaps heard of Beny Moré and, consciously or unconsciously, borrowed the rhythmic horn line (later played on guitar throughout the song). Who knows, perhaps I am just being overly imaginative...you tell me what you think?             

Fela Kuti's Water No Get Enemy

Fela Kuti, a Nigerian highlife and pioneer of the Afrobeat sound, recorded "Water No Get Enemy" for his Expensive Shit in 1975. Kuti's album was a direct response to the Nigerian government's attack on his compound, the Kalakuta Republic, resulting in the death of his mother and his arrest. This specific song is a political message to Nigeria, to the entire world, that the lifeblood of a nation is its people, just as water is the lifeblood for humanity. Through the jazzy (yet also irresistibly funky) song he sings in a pidgin English-Yoruba (presumably Yoruba) and plays his best keyboard solo I have ever heard. Personally, I think Kuti was probably a better saxophonist, but his jazzy, ethereal electric keyboard soars elegantly above the African groove. If you haven't heard it, check it out here and I guarantee you will be dancing. Anywho, Fela Kuti is a fascinating man, coming from a middle-class Yoruba background which included relatives such as Nobel Prize-winning writer Wole Soyinka, doctors, activists, and musicians. I have compiled a list of West African songs, including many by Fela and his 1960s highlife band, Koola Lobitos, on youtube here. Beginning in the late 1960s, presumably after some exposure to American funk and a record in LA, Fela's music shifted more to the growing preferences among young African-Americans for funk music, which led to Afrobeat.

D'Angelo, Macy Gray, and Fela's son, Femi, also recorded the song again in the 1990s. D'Angelo and Macy Gray were part of the 1990s "neo-soul" wave in contemporary R&B, and do a surprisingly good job in the Afrobeat context. Perhaps the reason they succeed here really lies in Femi Kuti's brilliance and ability to carry on the legacy of his politically conscious, pan-Africanist father. Unfortunately, last spring I missed an opportunity to hear Seun Kuti, Fela's other son, perform for free at UW-Madison due to my own ignorance and fear of attending alone. Anywho, listen to their tribute to Fela Kuti here, although the keyboard solo is not as great as Fela's. Did I mention this was part of a larger tribute album, Red Hot + Riot from 2002 to fundraise AIDS awareness (Fela Kuti died in 1997 because of AIDS complications).

Hip-hop has also been a big fan of Fela's music, including Pete Rock sampling "Water" for INl's "Grown Man Sport." The song only samples the keyboard solo for a loop of Fela and features the hip-hop group rapping over it. I know little of Inl, but Pete Rock is the famed hip-hop producer responsible for timeless beats such as "T.R.O.Y.," which should be listened to here.

Amazing World of "World" Music

An incomplete playlist of Jamaican rocksteady, reggae, and ska music with some Jamaican-influenced songs from the US and UK. Worth listening to here.

A West African music playlist including Afrobeat, highlife, folk music, mbalax, and other genres from Nigeria, Guinea, Senegal, Gambia, and Mali. Enjoy!

An Art Blakey playlist, also incomplete, but a good start. Listen!

Rough start on a John Coltrane playlist here.

Brazilian playlists galore! I have 3 different playlists encompassing MPB, samba, bossa nova, jazz, and a few other genres, such as baiao.
Check them out here, here, here, and here.

A Blues playlist here

A playlist including Curtis Mayfield, The Impressions, and other Chicago soul artists here

A Soul/R&B playlist also worth checking out

Congolese rumba 

Latin Jazz

Boogaloo/Latin Soul including many of the best Nuyorican artists of the genre's zenith in the 1960s

Miriam Makeba, South African kwela, marabi, and jazz included here

Hip-hop playlist as well

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