Afro-beat pioneer Fela Kuti was never more pissed off at his homeland's military government than in 1974. In that year, the Nigerian police persistently raided his compound, the Kalkuta Republic, as a result of Kuti's growing public opposition to the ruling junta. Having beaten a narcotics charge, the Lagos police swarmed Kuti's home in an attempt to plant a big fat joint on the premises and arrest him for possession.
Quick in thought as well as funk, Fela swallowed the joint. The on-looking officers promptly pushed him into the back of their wagon. Their immaculate plan was to wait for Kuti to dump his morning load for proof. They would then test the turd for THC and, according to the cunning plan, throw Kuti in the choky for a very long time, effectively ridding the Nigerian police of their number one gadfly. Though raised in what might be termed a middle-class environment, Fela Kuti was very much a people's champion, and his famous testing of authority was what saved him in the end-- he was able to exchange his stool for a less-enhanced specimen.
Fela Kuti had been an attentive apprentice when he jammed with some of James Brown's band members in a Los Angeles recording studio in 1969. But sadly, Kuti failed to secure the proper work Visas, and after four days, the Immigration and Nationalization Service threw him out of the country. Of course, Kuti had already gotten what he needed-- James Brown's funk and some Black Panther literature. He would turn his old band into a JB's-style groove machine, re-name it the Africa 70, and bring it on to the worms in power.
1975's Expensive Shit is paired on this new MCA reissue with He Miss Road, another Kuti release from that same year. The album's centerpiece, lead-off and title track was undoubtedly one of the most influential tracks to the Afro-beat movement, and to artists like the Talking Heads, who experimented with similar tribal rhythms on Fear of Music and their landmark album, 1980's Remain in Light. Its complex, bongo- centric percussion is tempered with funk guitar, discordant piano, and brass eruptions. And when, six minutes into the semi-improvisational, instrumental jam, Kuti awakens with a yowl and begins his political rant, he changes music forever.
"Water No Get Enemy," Expensive Shit's second track, is more philosophical than political, postulating the motion of water as a metaphor for human interaction and the rhythms of society. The music is lighter-- almost poetic-- but no less moving. After these two extended, 10+-minute affairs come three more, in the form of Kuti's follow-up album, He Miss Road. The title track here is a less strident affair than either of the cuts off Expensive Shit. Lyrically, Kuti comments on people's stupidity; he mocks an incompetent lawyer for handing over his brief to the prosecution, and tells of a band that turns up at a colony for the blind and the deaf. After a squall of noise, a summery, psychedelic groove settles the mood until finally giving way to an ambient organ.
Fela's tenor saxophonist, Igo Chico, surpasses all his other performances on this disc during "Monday Morning in Lagos," which is up there with the Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset" for magical evocations of cities. Chico's glimmering lines perfectly represent the rays of the rising sun while Kuti's Yoruban vocals add the necessary otherworldliness to the track.
The disc closes as it begins-- with bombs. On "It's No Possible," drummer Tony Allen imposes a polyrhythmic torrent that locks in the rest of the Africa 70. They have no choice but to grab hold of the music and further jazz it up. Fela's lyrics denouncing those who break promises effectively counterpoint Africa 70's joyous riot of uplifting funk. But then, that was Fela. Always contradictory-- a champion of women's rights who kept a harem of dozens of girls (pictured on the front cover of Expensive Shit). But there's no denying the guy's blatant courage in the eye of government, or the legacy of his musical vision.
With DJs steadily picking up on Francois Kervorkian's championing of Fela Kuti's work, it's all too easy to get caught up in Kuti's discography. Start with Expensive Shit and don't miss the road onward.
