#afro beat

Jeun Ko Ku (Chop'n'Quench) - Fela Kuti

1973

Afrobeat pressure cooker

FELA KUTI Toronto 1989

Even though it went unpublished anywhere for over twenty-five years, my 1989 portrait sitting with Nigerian musical legend Fela Kuti is probably one of my most important shoots. It happened because, to put it plainly, I wanted it to happen, and did my level best to make it happen. I was a fan and had photographed Fela at a press conference here in 1987, doing publicity for a concert that ended up not happening for two more years. I was in a bit of a lacuna in my career when a new concert was announced, first at a soccer stadium not far from where I lived, before it was moved to the old Masonic Temple downtown, also known as the Concert Hall. I wasn’t shooting regularly for any publication at the time, so I was working strictly on spec when I contacted Gary Froude, the promoter of the show, to see if I could get permission not just to photograph the concert but possibly a few minutes for a portrait sitting. To my surprise he said yes.

Fela Anikulapo Kuti was born to a prosperous family in Nigeria in 1938 and made his name with Africa 70, his first big band, attracting the attention of musicians like Ginger Baker and Paul McCartney. He also became a vocal opponent of Nigeria’s government, criticizing them as he recorded prolifically, on albums like Confusion, Expensive Shit, Zombie, No Agreement and many others. In 1977 his Lagos compound was raided; Fela as beaten severely and his mother was fatally injured when she was thrown out a window. By the end of the decade he’d formed a new band, Egypt 80, and began releasing records like Army Arrangement and Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense on labels in Europe and America. The Nigerian government jailed him on charges of currency smuggling in 1984, and in 1986 he performed at an Amnesty International concert in Giants Stadium. But ticket sales for his show in Toronto in 1989 were slow, forcing it to be moved to a smaller venue; I’m not sure the promoter made any money on it, but I remember it as one of the best concerts I have ever seen.

I showed up to photography Fela Kuti around soundcheck and set up my modest lighting in a big dressing room in the basement of the Concert Hall on Yonge Street. Most of all I remember that Fela was one of the most intimidating men I have ever met, and that we began the portrait sitting with a series of rather straightforward shots on my Mamiya C330 camera. After finishing a roll Fela signaled for a break; he stretched out on a couch and began smoking the largest joint I had seen in my life for over a half hour. When the portrait session resumed he was, as I once wrote, rather heroically stoned, and these photos were far looser, as Fela glowered and pulled at his face. I’ve included every worthwhile frame I shot that afternoon on this post – the first time many of these shots have ever been published. Fela Kuti died of complications from AIDS in 1997.

I returned that night to shoot the show, going through several rolls of colour and black and white film, after which everything sat in my files for over two decades until I posted a few shots on my old blog. They came to the attention of Rikki Stein, Fela’s onetime manager, who arranged for them to appear for the first time in a 2017 box set of Fela’s records curated by Erykah Badu. Since then my Fela shots have been reprinted frequently; they were featured as part of a nightclub set on the Netflix reboot of the prime time soap Dynasty, on a line of t-shirts made by Carhartt, and in a Fela exhibit in Paris in 2023. Last year one of my live shots of Fela was on the cover of the debut issue of Rolling Stone Africa, which felt like vindication for that spec shoot I’d begged to do almost four decades ago. (Though I still wish they’d gone with one of these portraits.)

“Music is a weapon of the future. Music is the weapon of the progressives. Music is the weapon of the givers of life.”

Fela Kuti Afríka 70

a power house

of deep groove.

slow burning vocals

cutting through pulse.

a politic top horn.