Fela Kuti

^^yes!

also "mr. grammarticologylisationalism is the boss"
lord it's good

http://www.studio360.org/episodes/2008/12/19

Bill T. Jones, the choreographer/director of Fela!, talks about the show and Fela on the radio program Studio 360. It appears the show may run in London shortly and then come back to NYC for a longer run if they can get financing.

!!!
http://www.voanews.com/english/africa/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=8DC92121-9F33-ED7A-D547329B08561449

Did anyone see this Yale Prof talk on Monday April 20th at Harvard (Wayne Marshall highlighted this at his Wayne and Wax site)?

Michael Veal, professor of ethnomusicology at Yale, bassist, and the author of two interesting and informed books, Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon and Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae* is delivering a lecture at Harvard this afternoon called “Technotopia 1969.”

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/news/bal-fela-jay-z-1117,0,4543991.story

NEW YORK - It's official: After weeks of speculation, Jay-Z and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith have joined the producing team of the Broadway musical "Fela!"

Jay-Z told The Associated Press last month that he might be getting involved in the show, an Afrobeat musical about the life of the late Nigerian musical legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Now producers say he and the Smiths are in, though there's no word on how much of a financial investment the three have made in the show.

"Fela!" is now in previews at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre and opens next Monday. It's directed and choreographed by Bill T. Jones.

Is Will Smith going to play Fela in the inevitable biopic? With CGI Jada as his 30 wives?

it'd be really funny if "fela: the musical" had all its songs written in the broadway musical idiom.

Andrew Lloyd Weber's Fela!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/theater/22fela.html?_r=1

Lotsa details in this Pareles article on the Broadway show plus the impending cd and vinyl reissues and Antibalas stuff

Knitting Factory Records has issued “The Best of the Black President,” a two-CD anthology of Fela’s music packaged with a documentary DVD. The label plans to release all of Fela’s nearly four dozen albums on CD and LP, including some that never appeared on vinyl in the United States.

fwiw, C and D on Fela The Musical (off-Broadway verz) from Arthur No. 31/Oct 2008:

http://www.arthurmag.com/2008/10/16/c-d-from-arthur-no-31/

anyone know what the forthcoming stones throw fela album is all about?

saw the musical this weekend--really incredible

antibalas is shit-hot, too

expensive shit-hot

suspicious but curious about the musical...

i look forward to future volumes of the Nigeria Special series.

anyone hear that "black man cry - influences of Fela" comp? interesting...

yeah, if you can get past the inevitable uncomfortable feeling about watching a several-hundred-thousand-dollar music with hundreds of well-heeled new yorkers its really, really worth it

Are there any cheaper tickets available day of the show at those 2 Ticket Booths? Would like to get up to NY from DC to see it.

i dunno--i am not really a theater-goer; my dad got the tickets

Ha. When tourist me is in NY I just show up and look on the boards posted at the Times Square and/or South Street Seaport locations, but maybe they also post the availability of the half-price or 25% off or whatever tickets online every morning also. The theatres want to fill the seats so each day they determine how many full-price tickets have sold, and then how many to sell cheaper. But maybe you know that. Not really a theater-goer either, but want to see this and "In the Heights" (the show with the uptown NYC Latin music)

"See the FELA! matinee this Wednesday at a special price.

Wednesday Matinees
$52 (reg. $99)

Now thru 02/28/10
$67 (reg. $110-$120)

Use Code FE4FANS
Best Available Seats!"

Fela is one of those artists who sometimes I think how incredibly my life changed when I first heard him and the general overall splendor of music is reawakened for me

fuck yeah, Fela

anyone hear that "black man cry - influences of Fela" comp? interesting...

Yeah, I reviewed it for The Wire along with the two new Nigeria Special comps. I didn't like it much - the old material was solid but the new stuff at the end really jarred.

xpost: just read that very review earlier today, and thought how so few tracks on these afrobeat comps of late reward me as much as Fela.

Bill T. Jones just won a Tony Award for best choreography for the Broadway show Fela. I wonder if they had a scene from the show on the Tonys (I've been watching more of the Basketball Final between Boston and L.A.)

given i saw antibalas a week ago (for free in chicago) and had one of those 'wtf !?!' moments, i need a starting block.
which one ?
a compilation, or head straight into the albums proper ?

This is great if you can find it (I guess it's out of print now). A two-disc best-of paired with a DVD containing a documentary filmed in about 1982 in Nigeria. There are two versions of the documentary, both included on the DVD - one in English and one in French, and each contains footage not found in the other, so it's worth it to watch both.

The 2-fer of 'Expensive Shit" & 'He Miss Road' is devastatingly good.

improvspirit speaks the truth. then follow that up with the live with ginger baker lp.

Saw The Musical! last night. Hugely entertaining. Story was thinly presented and verging on hagiography but music, not narrative, was the crucial element, and the songs sounded amazing.

I wanna go up to NYC and see this before it closes.

The label plans to release all of Fela’s nearly four dozen albums on CD and LP, including some that never appeared on vinyl in the United States.

The first batch of these is out next week:

http://www.amazon.com/Vinyl-Box-Set-Curated-uestlove/dp/B0046I8MA2
Knitting Factory Records is proud to release the first of the long-awaited vinyl reissues from the Fela Kuti catalog. This is the first in a series of curated vinyl box sets. The box includes six Fela Kuti albums that were handpicked by ?uestlove of The ROOTS. The artwork for each album is painstakingly recreated original album artwork along with vintage vinyl label artwork. What’s more is that this release marks the first time that some of these Fela Kuti albums have been released on vinyl domestically.

The box includes the albums:
Everything Scatter (1975)
Expensive Shit (1975)
Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense (1986)
Beasts Of No Nation (1989)
Fear Not For Man (1977)
Sorrow Tears And Blood (1977)

awesome! been waiting forever for this to get off the ground. but...

bummed that they're gonna be box sets. means significant cash outlay that poor-ass me really can't afford, shouldn't be considering. and bummed that they're not just gonna be sequential. would make a whole lot more sense that way, allow for comprehensive liner notes devoted to the phases of his life and music that you could read while listening to the relevant albums.

looking a gift horse in the mouth over here

i picked up expensive shit from the 2nd hand record store last wkend! it's awesome (obv)

That's cool news bing. and $80 is not a bad price for 6 LPs

true but what the hell with the scattershot non-sequential approach, bad move imo.

*hoping the next boxset will have No Agreement and He Miss Road*

Also year-ago j0hn otm

Expensive Shit/He Miss Road and Open & Close/Afrodisiac are probably my favorite twofers

But Shakara/London Scene and Confusion/Gentleman are also great. The jam at the beginning of Confusion is FIRE.

The artwork for each album is painstakingly recreated original album artwork along with vintage vinyl label artwork.

I dunno. I haven't ever seen the original album covers as they are hard to find, but I'd like to know what was so painstaking in creating the orginal covers. Expensive Shit looks like it is a very bad photocopy reproduction. The text is kinda fuzzy and maybe out of focus (if I'm looking at it right). Almost like the original image used was a 400x400 pixel blown up larger for the lp. Maybe someone with the original album can shed some input on this album's cover? The others look okay, I guess. Just a minor picking on my part.

Not sure how these are sourced either. But they sound pretty good.

i essentially know nothing about fela but i've been listening to that "the best of the black president" comp a lot lately. my default answer to the "favorite album" question has for years been remain in light, so this is simultaneously an "oh that's what they were ripping off" moment and a "oh amazing, hours and hours of this stuff" moment.

<3 you dlh, remain in light was my #1 for years until i finally overplayed it. If you're a fela neophyte like u say I would suggest watching "Music Is The Weapon" immediately.

Also this box set news is awesome! was starting to wonder if this project stalled out.

I think if you want to know what Remain in Light is ripping off, you also need to check out Manu Dibango and King Sunny Ade. (xpost)

The London version of Fela The Musical was breathtaking. Got taken to it as a birthday thing.Can't believe the endless energy poured into it. God those people are fit, speshly the ladees.

Have that Best Best of Black President 2cd & a couple of other things. Must get some more.

Listening to Zombie on Glengad beach last summer is a major musical memory of 2010

Last time I saw the Roots, maybe a month or two ago, Black Thought hinted they were taking something Fela-related out on the road. Anyone know what he was on about?

fuck this high priced box set treatment (i cant afford it either). would be happy if his old albums were just reeleased on vinyl at a reasonable price. there were a load released in the 90s - someone needs to do that again.

I was in England last week and they were selling a 27-disc box (all 43 albums on 26 CDs, plus a DVD) for 65 pounds. I almost bought one.

^yeah that would be difficult to pass up

yeah that complete recordings set looks tempting. you can get it for just about $100 via amazon marketplace sellers. i've been very close to pulling the trigger on buying it.

In general I'm not a fan of super-long intros, but I make an exception for "Confusion"

The Confusion/Gentleman twofer CD was my fave during my peak Fela obsession (I also enjoyed reading Michael Veal's book on him at that time), but everything named in the revive is great and Moodles is otm. I also loved "Lady" off of Shakara though, uh, I do not endorse the lyrics lol

"Lady" is icky but also fantastic. At random I'll sing, to myself, "She waaaaant that piece of meat before anybody."

it also inspired a great Hugh Masekela track

This is cool for the tracks with Fela that I hadn't heard before, but would be 10000000000000x better with Tony Allen instead of Ginger Baker, obviously

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37sDbvQOJ2I

That's p much how I feel about the Ginger Baker / Fela album - it would be better without Ginger Baker and just Tony Allen

Oh! forgot that I went to an artist talk last week with Lemi Ghariokwu, creator of all the iconic Fela album covers, and it was a night full of amazing anecdotes. Got to enjoy dinner with the man as well. A funny, brilliant human.

re Ginger Baker: (paraphrased) "Always passed out on a sofa with a big joint in one hand, a glass of wine in the other."

That's p much how I feel about the Ginger Baker / Fela album - it would be better without Ginger Baker and just Tony Allen

i'm no Ginger Baker apologist but that album has one of my top 5 Fela tracks - Egbe Mi O. i guess it might have been right at the top if it was just Allen drumming.

Very cool JV!

Crazy.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/apr/10/life-with-fela-kuti-dangerous-tour-roy-ayers-nigeria

Whoa

Bernard Purdie content alert!

Bernard is playing in Chicago this weekend and I don't think I can make it :(