Fela's Shrine

Chi Sono

Born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti in Abeokuta, Nigeria. Mother Funmilayo was a feminist activist who fought the British colonial government -- she was the first Nigerian woman to drive a car. Father Israel was an Anglican minister and school principal. Music was in the house but revolution was in the blood. I went to London to study medicine. Came back with a trumpet. I invented Afrobeat -- jazz, funk, highlife, Yoruba rhythms, and political fury fused into songs that lasted forty-five minutes. My nightclub was called The Shrine. My commune was called the Kalakuta Republic. The military government raided it -- a thousand soldiers attacked my compound. They threw my mother from a window. She died from her injuries. I put her coffin on the steps of the military barracks. I married twenty-seven women on the same day. I ran for president. They arrested me two hundred times. Afrobeat didn't die because you can't arrest a rhythm.

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Afrobeat Rhythm Workshop -- 45 Minutes of Groove

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