I should add that Sandra Iszadore briefly joined Fela in Lagos in 1970. In fact he even made one song with Iszadore on a later trip by her called “Upside Down” that was released by Decca West Africa in 1976. This is about a man who travels the world where the telephones, light supply, transport system, etc. all work in an orderly way. However, when he comes back to Africa he sees plenty of land but no food, plenty of villages but no roads, plenty of open space but no houses. In short, education, agriculture, communications, and the power supply are in confusion. Fela’s reference to electrical failures is a quip on the state of NEPA, the Nigerian Electrical Supply Authority, which in the 1970s broke down ten to twenty times a day.
It was in 1971 that Fela moved from the Kakadu Club to the larger Surulere Club, changed the name of his band from the Nigeria 70 to the Africa 70, and renamed his Afro-Spot venue the Africa Shrine, which included a small shrine. By this time he had developed the idea of his “comprehensive show” in which his band would take a break in the middle of the dance set, change into animal skins, and return to play a floor show that included dancing and funny novelty acts. According to the band’s hand-drummer Daniel “J. B.” Koranteng, Fela wore a costume made out of snakeskin, another musician a leopard skin, while J. B. himself wore one made from a lion skin.
In 1971 Fela teamed up with Ginger Baker (formerly with Eric Clapton’s band Cream). The British rock drummer had crossed the Sahara Desert that year and made a film of the journey,19 as well as making a visit to Ghana’s veteran master drummer Kofi Ghanaba (Guy Warren). Baker subsequently went into partnership with a Nigerian and helped set up Nigeria’s first multitrack studio, ARC Studio
During the summer of 1971 the Africa 70 played in London with Ginger Baker at the Abbey Road Studios in London to record the album Fela Live with Ginger Baker. It was there that Fela first met Paul McCartney, who later, in 1973, was to visit Lagos on a recording trip with his band Wings and who got into a confrontation with and Fela at the Afro-Spot club in Lagos when Fela accused McCartney of trying to steal or woo away some members of the Africa 70.20
In London the Africa 70 played at the Cue Club, the Four Aces, and 100 Club and also toured the country. “J. B.” Koranteng told me that when they played in Wales and the band marched up to the stage for their “comprehensive show” section of the performance dressed in animal skins, the crowd panicked. Some started rushing for the door and others tried to jump out of windows, until Ginger Baker cooled them down and explained it was all part of the show.
It was in 1972 that Fela released his much-loved Yoruba Afrobeat “Sakara Oleje” about loudmouthed braggarts. That was also the year that the Africa 70 toured Ghana in a program organized by Stan Plange and Faisal Helwani. This included a performance for the leader Colonel Acheampong, as the new military government of Ghana was pro-Nkrumahist and still radical at that time. So Fela was quite comfortable performing for this military leader. Fela also played for and “yabbied” the university students at the Legon campus and the African Youth Command in Tema.
Fela talking to the Ghanaian military head of state Colonel Acheampong during a show in Accra in 1972.
In 1972 J. K. joined Fela after returning from abroad, and in late 1973 Fela relocated the Africa Shrine to the Empire Hotel in Mushin, diagonally opposite his house. There too he set up an actual shrine dedicated to Kwame Nkrumah and surrounded by the flags of some of Africa’s independent nations. By then the Africa 70 band was becoming more radical in its Yoruba and pidgin English lyrics, and between 1972 and 1974 the group began making extensive tours of West Africa. It was in 1975 that Fela Africanized his name by removing the colonial “Ransome” from his surname Ransome-Kuti and substituting it with “Anikulapo,” which means “he who holds death in his pocket or pouch.”
2
JOE MENSAH REMEMBERS
The late Joe Mensah was a pioneering Ghanaian highlife singer who released eleven albums and several singles. He began his musical career with the Broadway Dance Band in the 1950s. This was against his parents’ wishes, so as a teenager he left Ghana for Lagos in 1958, where he joined Chief Billy Friday’s Downbeat Highlife Band. It was then that Joe became a close friend of the young Fela, just before Joe went to further his studies in London. Joe returned home three years later and rejoined Broadway, renamed Uhuru, in 1963. In the same year he recorded his famous “Uhuru Special” (with “Bosoe” on the flip side) in Lagos with the Uhuru members under the name Big Beats. In 1964 he left for the United States to study civil engineering and pursue his musical career. However, he made many trips to West Africa, and in the early 1970s, with the help of Fela’s horn section, he recorded in Lagos with the Ghanaian band Sweet Talks. He returned to Ghana in 1992, becoming president of the musicians’ union of Ghana. Sadly, Joe died in 2002 after a short illness. This interview was recorded at the MUSIGA offices on September 2, 1998.
Tell me how you first got to know Fela.
We [a group of Ghanaian musicians] got to Lagos in early 1958 to join the Downbeats that resided at a nightclub called Nat’s Club de Paris at 80 Ojuelegbe Road in Surulere. It was not far from Fela’s home as he was staying with his mother at the family house [working as a clerk with the Ministry of Commerce]. We played at the club about four times a week, and one evening, I think it was a Sunday, we played our usual gig. At the end of one of the songs I sang I saw somebody come on stage, put his head between my legs and carry me on his shoulders. He took me through the audience and was saying to the crowd: “You people, have you heard any voice as great as this one? And you just sit down and don’t show any appreciation.” So people began throwing money to us on the floor. After he put me back on stage he collected all the money and brought it to the band. That was Fela!
From that day on my day would never be complete if I didn’t see him and he would not go out without seeing me. We became very close even though he was about twenty years old and quite a few years older than me. I would spend a lot of time at his house, but I never met his mother until one day I went there and she was washing clothes.
Fela had told his mother a lot about me and she said that how is it possible that I look so much like her children. Like we’re related. She also said that I’m too young for my mother to have allowed me to leave Ghana and stay in Nigeria, so from that time I should consider her my mother, call her “Ma,” and when I need consolation, food, or whatever, I should always go there.
Fela and I used to hang around in the night and roamed the whole of Lagos. You know it was then a very peaceful place and we used to walk to the Marina from Surulere. We were so free. We bought food from the women who cook on the roadside and we visited friends. We walked over Carter Bridge to go into Lagos [Island] itself to get to the Marina and the real ghettos around the lagoons where the people were so friendly. Even the traffic in Lagos was exciting as it was then 80 percent full of bicycles. Even Fela had a bike. When we came back in the night to sleep I sometimes stayed with Fela and sometimes at my place, as some mornings we started rehearsals early.
At this time one incident occurred that I’ve never told anyone before, as I’m a bit embarrassed when I’m talking about it. This was one Saturday night when we [The Downbeats] were playing at our normal place, and after finishing singing women were coming after me too aggressively. Fela was watching. He staved them off and said: “Leave him alone, don’t you know he’s a small boy? Don’t you have any shame?” I don’t know how one Yoruba lady talked Fela into this but all I saw was that the lady