What happens? An 8-track remix compiled from “… dozens of hand-picked samples from the Nigerian instrumentalist and political figure Fela Kuti, and 8 carefully-chosen acapellas from the Native Tongue rap trio De La Soul” called Fela Soul.
The remix is the work of America Gazaway for Gummy Soul.
Above is the promo video. Here’s a link to a free download.
Seun Kuti (28 year old son of Fela), playing Brooklyn next month, talk to Wax Poetics TV has some issues with other artists. He is definitely casting stones on all the blinged out, autotuned Nigerian pop.
Youtube is streaming all of the 44-odd minutes of Blitz the Ambassador’s second studio album, “Native Sun.”
The album will be released May 3rd in North America, and May 6th Worldwide.
I have already pre-ordered my copy.
Last week The New York Times published an odd piece of writing by one its theater “critics”, Charles Isherwood about the Broadway show “Fela!” about the life of the Afrobeat king. Isherwood, in a piece that was begging for reaction, accused the show of “tilting” towards minstrelsy (basically Bill T Jones promotes blackface) aimed at white audiences, that the dancers were to sexy (they showed too much flesh and danced to suggestively) and interacts with the audience, that it was all about Fela all the time and that no one else had a speaking role–except Fela and “an American.”
This is a clip from an excellent PBS report by journalist Marco Werman who traveled to Lagos, Nigeria, where talk to Fela Kuti’s son, Seun.
Interview with Nigerian singer, Nneka, about her new album (the cover of which is striking) by my friend, Siddhartha Mitter, in “The Boston Globe” this weekend.
A profile of Lemi Ghariokwu
Femi Kuti speaking on politics and Afrobeat; interviewed in San Francisco earlier this year.
The New York mainstream press is all over Bill T Jones’ musical “Fela!,” which recently opened in the city. Everybidy wants the show to succeed in a downmarket. “The New York Times” has done a few pieces– a preview and a review, while “The Village Voice” published a long piece by one of its music writers, Rob Harvilla, who also wondered alout about Fela’s political legacy:
