★WRASSE RECORDS
'66 - '76
Hugh Masekela was one of the world’s finest and most distinctive horn players, a musical celebrity who built up a dedicated global following thanks to his unique blend of jazz, South African styles, and music from across the African continent and diaspora. The albums that Masekela recorded in this period, from 1966 to 1976, were impressively varied. He was already a fine horn player and powerful singer, and his songs ranged from exquisite to angry and experimental. It may seem extraordinary that…
Zombie Fela Kuti And Afrika 70
Includes liner notes by Jacqueline Grandchamp-Thiam, Rikki Stein and Mabinuori Kayode Idowu. Digitally remastered by Pompon (Translab Paris, Paris, France). With the inclusion of Nigerian master musician Fela Anikulapo Kuti's incendiary 1977 single, "Zombie," "Mr. Follow Follow," a typical anti-authoritarian exhortation, and a couple of hitherto-unreleased live cuts from the 1978 Berlin Jazz festival, ZOMBIE finds the iconoclastic singer and bandleader at his electrifying best. The title track, …
Upside Down/Music Of Many Colours
This two-for-one CD reissue brings together a couple of the more unusual offerings in Fela Kuti's discography. Upside Down, released in 1976, is the usual two-song, half-hour deal, the songs beginning with several minutes of instrumental solo trades before the socially conscious lyrics enter. The song "Upside Down" itself, however, is sung not by Kuti but by Sandra Akanke Isidore. She was a woman who Kuti met during his stay in the United States at the end of the '60s, and who is credited with h…
Live In Amsterdam
Personnel includes: Fela Kuti (vocals, soprano saxophone, electric piano, organ); Laspalmer Ojeah (guitar); Femi Kuti (alto saxophone); Oyinade Adeniran (tenor saxiphone); Tajudeen Amimashaun, Achampong (baritone saxophone); Moses Sobo Wale, Akameah (trumpet); Dele Soshimi (keyboards); Lamtey (drums); Benjamin (congas). Producer: Fela Kuti. Reissue producer: Jean-Pierre Haie. Recorded live in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on November 28, 1983. Includes liner notes by Jacqueline Grandchamp-Thiam, Ri…
Teacher, Don't Teach Me Nonsense
In Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense, Fela explains the role of the teacher in any society with the concept that all the things we consider to be problems and all that we consider to be good in life begin with what we are taught, whether it's by our mothers at home, our teachers at school, lecturers at University or the government beyond that. Who then is the governments teacher? 'Culture and Tradition' says Fela.
Shuffering And Shmiling / No Agreement
Nigerian musician Fela Anikulapo Kuti specialized in the percolating jam, peppered with idiosyncratic horn stabs and political chants, underpinned with sinuous, interweaving guitar and bass lines, and propelled by Tony Allen's Afrobeat percussion, blending traditional Yoruban rhythms and contemporary James Brown beats. SHUFFERING AND SHMILING is trademark Fela, mixing several lengthy, irresistibly danceable tracks (including "Dog Eat Dog," a collaboration with Art Ensemble of Chicago trumpeter L…
Roforofo Fight/Fela Singles
This is essentially a CD reissue of Fela Kuti's 1972 album Roforofo Fight, with the addition of two previously unreleased tracks from the same era. It's true that Kuti's early-'70s records tend to blur together with their similar groupings of four lengthy Afro-funk jazz cuts. In their defense, it must be said that while few artists can pull off similar approaches time after time and continue to make it sound fresh, Kuti is one of them. Each of the four songs on Roforofo Fight clocks in at 12 to …
Original Suffer Head/I.T.T.
Nearly every one of MCA's twofer reissues of the best albums in Fela Kuti's discography is worthwhile, and this pairing of 1980's I.T.T. and 1982's ORIGINAL SUFFER HEAD is no exception. By the early '80s Fela had already honed his intensely polyrhythmic Afrobeat sound to perfection, and these two recordings feature all of the extended vamps, roiling rhythms, searing horns, call-and-response vocals, and political invective he was known for. ORIGINAL SUFFERHEAD marks the debut of Fela's Egypt 80 b…