Fela Anikulapo
By
"To live outside the law, you must be honest" Bob Dylan, American Folksinger ,1968
Bob Dylan was in some respects to white Americans what Fela became to every Nigerian government since he hit the limelight in the early 1960s. Son of a well-respected clergyman who was a solid member of the Egba aristocracy, many people would have been mystified regarding his rebellious traits. Pastors' sons are supposed to be gentle, innocent clods who attend Sunday school, learn the Bible by rote and become organists if they posses any musical talents. But this one called Fela, was a musical genius from birth, who hated Sunday schools and preferred bawdy songs to the hymns.
From where did that rebellious streak came? Well, there was only one source - the mother, Mrs Funmilayo Ransome -Kuti. Fela’s mother with others once sacked an Egba paramount ruler in order to insist on social reforms liberating women from most of the shackles of traditional society. Fela was breast-fed rebellion; like Beko. The wonder is, how was it possible for Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti to have emerged such a perfect gentleman? That Fela had music in his blood was evident from an early age. Many of his classmates recall how he spent hours drumming away at his desk right through English, Mathematics, Biology or any other subject being taught.
Punishment came his way ceaselessly and he served them but went right back to drumming. Rebels are nothing if not stubborn and single-minded. Naturally, he never topped his class in academics and he was certainly relieved when he finished secondary school, an obligation which his parents must have imposed on a youngster who was impatient for stardom in music.... and rebellion. He went abroad, read music, and returned to Nigeria to start both music and a lifetime of rebellion against the elite from whose ranks he came from. Fela could have played any kind of music; he could have established an establishmentarian group like the Steve Rhodes Voices, because he had cachet into the Egba establishment which remains powerful in Nigeria. But like Toulouse Loutrec (1864 - 1901), the French artist he went across the tracks, reached for the under-trodden and started playing the sort of music only the young and rebellious dropouts and outcasts would love.
The language was sacrilegious; the choreography amoral and shocking. On stage, he was a monster of profanity lashing out against the ruling class and the oppressors. If there was a war against government leaders, and there was a relentless battle, Fela declared it and fought it his way to the last day. Fela was not just a rebel against a society he perceived to be unjust; he was the rebel of rebels; he sacrificed everything to his rebellion. My first contact with the philosophy of rebellion was in Philosophy 1 which I had taken as a freshman in 1964 (i.e. Level 100), an elective course. The lecturer had recommended as optional reading, Albert Camus seminal book The Rebel. (And will somebody out there please send me a copy as gift?) Which I had read with very little understanding. Two years into my MBA programme in 1970, I had started again reading the book with greater understanding. But my grasp of the subject is still incomplete.
What is clear to me about rebels in general and Fela in particular leads to one conclusion: lucky is that nation which never lacks for rebels because they are amongst the greatest beneficiaries of mankind and it does not matter whether they adopt music like Fela's; writing like Ken Saro Wiwa or take up arms like Isaac Boro. "Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God" is a statement often attributed to Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790). While Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826) exclaimed: "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against any form of tyrany". Fela was openly an atheist, but he was as close to God as Franklin and Jefferson in his abhorence of political, ideological, social and economic tyranny. To understand Fela, one has to ask several questions. Perhaps, the most important of them are: Who is a rebel? What drives him? And what is his value to society?
Camus in THE REBEL (which I don’t have at the moment, so I hope what follows is a good recollection of what I read in 1970) explained that "A rebel is a man who said "No" but who by saying "No" does not just reject something he finds intolerable. He is also a man who says "Yes". The rebel’s delinquency, as society terms it, "has affirmation behind it" (Frank X Barron; Princeton: 1963). Going by the ordinary dictionary definition of the rebel as "one who opposes authority or restraint: one who breaks with established custom or tradition" (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary), most people are bound to see the rebel, and in this case Fela as anti-social elements who should not be allowed to succeed or to gather followership. That will be a tragic mistake. Rebellion has always propelled civilization; moving mankind towards greater achievements.
Jacob Bronowski in The Face of Violence asserted with considerable validity that "no society is strong which does not acknowledge the protesting man" and Fela was unrelenting in protest. Whereas Steve Rhodes playing sonatas, fugues, symphonies and opera music for the highbrow in society has achieved celebrity; his music will most likely not outlast him.
By contrast, Fela’s music which was original and socially disruptive will live for ever as long as there is injustice in the land because the rebellious music is the tune of affirmation of human beings here, everywhere, now and for all time. " The very act of rebellion presupposes a value" (Rollo May). The value is universal.
Obviously, the next question to ask is "what drives the rebel?" What makes a Fela, who could have played Mozart, Bach, Hadyn and all the imitative stuff which establishment musicians played but instead opted for Afro-beats, a new genre of music? Dr Rollo May in his best seller titled Power And Innocence provided much of the answer. "What is this element?" he asked. "It is the capacity to sense injustice (Zombie O Zombie) and to take a stand against it (International Thief Thief) in the form of I-will-be-destroyed rather than submit (smoking hemp publicly). It is a rudimentary anger, a capacity to muster all one’s power and assert it against what one experiences as unfair." What drives the rebel? What motivates a Fela to accept runaway youth into his Kalakuta Republic, feeding them, housing them and if female, making them his queens? May again answered some of it. "His distinguishing characteristic is his perpetual restlessness. He seeks above all an internal change, a change in the attitudes, emotions, and outlook of the people to whom he is devoted.
He often seems to be temperamentally unable to accept success and the ease it brings (Fela earned more foreign exchange than any musician of his era yet, lived like a pig; he never owned a suit or complete Nigerian dress; no designer shoes); he kicks against the pricks and when one frontier is conquered, he soon becomes ill at ease and pushes against the new frontier. He is drawn to the unquiet minds and spirits. For he shares their everlasting inability to accept stultifying control ...... He rebels for the sake of a vision of life and society which he is convinced is critically important for himself and his fellows". Every single one of Fela’s record was a call for change; for justice and for good governance.
What is the rebel’s value to society? What made a good part of Nigeria to stand still when Fela’s death was announced? Because the rebel "is the one who keeps the state from settling down into a complacency, which is the first step towards decadence..... The humanity of the rebel lies in the fact that civilization rises from his deeds. The function of the rebel is to shake fixated mores and the rigid order of civilization, and this shaking, though painful, is necessary if the society is to be saved from boredom and apathy. And the genuine rebel like Fela invariably has demonstrated "the capacity to assume responsibility for one's own and one’s fellow’s lives". Take for instance, the record "Suffer, Suffer for here ..... 44 sitting, 99 standing" referring to our overcrowded molue buses coming from somebody rich enough to buy a fleet of the most expensive cars, who never rides in molues but who owns only a collection of old bangers. Nobody who daily makes use of our public transport systems in Nigeria can fail to harbour deep resentment and hatred for those at the top of governments. Many of us utter curses and maledictions under our breathes all the while hoping no police officer is around to hear them. What we are afraid to whisper, Fela shouts out loud in his records. "For the rebel, (i.e. Fela), does what the rest of us would like to do but don’t dare".
Fela like many every other genuine rebel, is a "a beast of no nation" to borrow a term from the Abami-eda himself; he is at once a stateless and an international person because of "the universality of the rebel’s vision. His ideal of life, which gives birth to his rebellion in the first place, applies not just to himself but to others as well and these others must include his enemies ..... .. He identifies with people who suffer everywhere and feels a passionate desire to do something about this suffering. This arises from his sensitivity and empathy for other people which form his vision. True, the rebel is sometimes so absorbed in the universal application of his ideal that he neglects his own family".
Fela made more money than most Nigerian musicians; yet, not for him the praise-singing of money bags or Presidents who might have robbed the people. He would not accept an engagement to play at a millionaire’s private party and he would have been horrified if someone tried to "spray" him with money. Yet, he gave away more money on a daily basis to total strangers who came near his "republic" than the run-of-the-mill musician makes in six months. This explains why his funeral was unique in the history of Nigeria. No Nigerian, including Presidents and the ordinary rich got so many "trouble makers", market women, butchers, drivers and conductors to abandon their trade for him as Fela did.
The crowd around Tafawa Balewa was estimated at two million (real two million not the phoney Abacha numbers). Hemp smokers, prostitutes, shoemakers, bus drivers, conductors, motorcycle operators, market women and traders came to pay their last respects to the only man who lived his life and played his music to give voice to the voiceless; to take the message of the silent majority to their oppressor minorities.
Ironically, Fela who thumbed his nose at religion and avoided churches and mosques like a plaque was more religious than Bishops and imams. If indeed there is a judgement day, this eminently honest, generous and empathic rebel will make it to heaven before the outwardly religious. Fela lived a truly non-denominational religious life in the shrine called kalakuta. Fela’s corpse was buried; but Fela will live forever, for as long as there is music and injustice.