JAMIE BRITTON recommends that we all buy at least two copies of a remarkable book of poems
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Global Routes with TONY BURKE: August 30 2023
Reviews of Afrobeat Classic Gentleman by Fela Kuti and Les Symphatics de Porto Novo Benin
MARIA DUARTE goes down a bilingual rabbit hole with an impressive Jodie Foster
DAVID HARVIE recommends a selection of Harry Cleaver’s writing that documents working-class activism and offers a method, and a way of understanding and investigating the world
DAVID YEARSLEY is fascinated by the account of four composers who transformed their experiences of the second world war and the Holocaust into deeply moving works of art
PETER MASON thrills to the sound of south London-born Yussef Dayes, and the galaxy of musicians drawn into his orbit
From post-human revolution in Puerto Rico to trans poetics and queer mythmaking, these three books that imagine new ways of being together
NIGERIAN sax player, bandleader, composer, political activist and Pan-Africanist Fela Kuti is regarded (with his band Africa 70) as the father of Afrobeat, which combined West African music with funk and jazz, popular not just in Nigeria but across Africa.
Fela made his recording debut in 1970 and his 1973 set Gentleman is seen as an Afrobeat classic. One of his most political albums ever, its title track attacks the colonial mentality of Africans who maintain European customs and clothing styles. The album features a cover collage of a monkey’s head on a western-suited body.
The original Fela Kuti: Gentleman has been issued on vinyl to mark its 50th anniversary by Knitting Factory Records.
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