Abstract:
On November 23, 2009, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, who created the music genre afrobeat, was
celebrated by Broadway with a production called FELA!, produced by “Jay-Z,” Will Smith, and
Jada Pinkett-Smith. Patrons of music and performing arts, who thronged the venue, paid homage
to the memory, person, and life of the talented composer, singer, and instrumentalist who died in
1997. His legendary status, in the realm of music, indubitably has outlived him. Fela was a social
commentator, whose critical comments often made the government of his country persecute him.
Moreover, he advocated for a political, cultural, economic, and social renaissance of Africa and
people of African descent and encouraged, through his music style and lyrical composition, and
non-musical speeches, the idea of Blackism, which fundamentally corresponded with the
nationalist ideological sentiments that the Black Power Movement, in the U.S., had projected
from the 1960s onward. This study, stepping away from the traditional biography and
hermeneutics of Fela as a prodigy of music, harsh critic of Nigeria’s nation politics, and an
enigmatic phallocentric, discusses him and his musical career as bridges for the Black Power
Movement to Africa. It examines Fela as a charismatic continental African who, as a proponent
of the empowerment of the diaspora and continental African community, advocated key ideas
and sentiments of the Black Power Movement in Africa—a movement that took its genesis from
the varieties of that African/Black nationalism tradition and the nationalist sentiment of the
African (Black)-American community of the U.S. in the 20th century.
