confusion / expensive shit

Fela Kuti and Afrika '70 laid out these extended funk jazz afrobeat expressions of polyrhythmic psychedelia as a perturbed pronouncement on post-colonial putrefaction.    Born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti on 15 October 1938 in Abeokuta, Nigeria, he was sent to London at the age of twenty to study medicine but decided instead to study music at the Trinity College of Music.  He formed the rhythmic jazz ensemble Koola Lobitos, which became a club success around London.  He returned to Nigeria in 1963 where he created a new version of the band.  During a trip to Ghana, he developed a new musical direction he dubbed "afrobeat" and then took his group to Los Angeles where he was exposed to radical politics and recorded an album that would later be released as the '69 L.A. Sessions.   

Back in Nigeria he renamed the group The Afrika '70 and started a commune he called the Kalakuta Republic.   The prolific ensemble released a series of  groundbreaking studio albums that included  Fela Ransome Kuti and His Koola Lobitos  in  1965;  Fela Fela Fela  in  1969;   Why Black Man Dey Suffer,  Open & Close,  and  Fela's London Scene  in 1971;   Roforofo Fight  and  Shakara in  1972;  and  Gentleman  and  Afrodisiac  in 1973.    Kuti also released two live albums  (Afro Beat on Stage: Recorded Live at the Afro Spot  in  1966   and   Fela Ransome-Kuti and The Africa '70 With Ginger Baker - Live!  in  1971) and appeared on Ginger Baker's Stratavarious album in 1972.    By 1974, he had successfully made the transition to political artist and had centered on Nigeria's capital city of Lagos as his focus.  




During the next year, he began working on several projects at once.   The sessions that resulted in 'Confusion' and 'Expensive Shit' featured  James Abayomi on sticks;   Tony Allen on lead drums and solo drums;   Lekan Animashaun on baritone saxophone;   George Mark Bruce on bass guitar;   Segun Edo on tenor guitar;   Henry Kofi on first conga;   Daniel Koranteg on second conga;   Tony Njoku on trumpet;   Emmanuel Odenusi on engineering and mixing;   Isaac Olaleye on maracas;   Remi Olowookere on graphics;   Fela Ransome-Kuti on arrangements, tenor saxophone, piano, production, and  vocals;   and  Tutu Shoronmu on rhythm guitar;   as well as  Ogene Kologbo on tenor guitar;   Ukem Stephen on trumpet;  Franco Aboddy on bass guitar;  Tunde Williams on trumpet;  Christopher Uwaifor on tenor saxophone;   Leke Benson on rhythm guitar;   Nicholas Addo on conga;   James Abayomi on sticks;  and Demola Odebiyi as recording engineer.    The group would also record five other albums that year:   Monkey Banana,  Excuse O,  Noise for Vendor Mouth,   He Miss Road, and   Everything Scatter.




http://www.felaproject.net/

http://www.afrobeatmusic.net/







Confusion
full album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhqXJOoItOI


All songs were arranged, composed, and produced by Fela Ransome-Kuti.

Side one
"Confusion Pt. I" – 14:08
Side two
"Confusion Pt. II" – 11:28







Expensive Shit
full album:  

Expensive Shit 13:07
The titular song was inspired by Kuti being jailed on charges of possession of marijuana.  After he ate his stash, authorities waited for it to pass through him; but he was able to replace his own excrement with that of another prisoner.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmXvpuseXWU


Water No Get Enemy 11:02
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axcQwDGgTJg

zombie

Fela Kuti drew admiration and aggression with the wicked political satire of this explosive Afrobeat exposition. 'Zombie' took Kuti's polyrhythmic funk to the next level by comparing the soldiers of the brutal Nigerian regime to mindless monsters. His anger is focused into a humorous metaphor with a contagious groove that was embraced by the people; but the government was extremely displeased. Very soon after the release of the album, one thousand soldiers marched on the Kalakuta Republic commune where Kuti and his band Afrika '70 recorded the album and burned the place to the ground. In the process the soldiers threw his elderly mother from a window causing fatal injuries and nearly beat Kuti to death. Fela delivered her casket to the barracks and demanded that the army bury her body. He would later write the song 'Unknown Soldier' as a response to the result of the official inquiry that determined that the attack was committed by an unknown soldier. A year later, Kuti married tweny-seven women to mark the anniversary of the attack on the Kalakuta Republic. Many of these women were his dancers, composers, and singers. As part of African tradition, he married them to offer them protection from being destitute. He was banned from performing in Ghana after a riot broke out during a live performance of 'Zombie' in 1978. Later that year, Afrika '70 broke up after a show in Berlin. In 1979, he ran for President as head of the Movement of the People party he started and continued to record his revolutionary music and tour up until his death from A.I.D.S. in 1997.  'Zombie' stands as a defining work of defiance and determination from Kuti's extensive catalogue.

Kuti would later say of his life of hardship and imprisonment:   "Oh, as a matter of fact, I don’t think anything negative ever happened to me. It looked negative to the materialistic world, but in my spiritual life, which was now exposed to me or to other people, every suffering that I went through was like I was buying powers, I was buying health from higher powers. Every time I went through my sufferings, like they burned my house, beating, everything, every time I was in punishment it was not pleasant. But any time I went through it, I was always happy that I was able to stand it. And I would never regret that I went through it. I was out good, so you know, it’s beautiful. So every experience like this prison I went to, although it was terrible for punishment, after I was in I didn’t think I could really go through 18 months of prison and come out fine. So every stage of my difficulties was like what people call a 'blessing'."











http://fela.net/









Zombie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO8PnLAtAnc


Zombie o, zombie (Zombie o, zombie)
Zombie o, zombie (Zombie o, zombie)
Zombie no go go, unless you tell him to go. (Zombie)
Zombie no go stop, unless you tell him to stop. (Zombie)
Zombie no go turn, unless you tell him to turn. (Zombie)
Zombie no go think, unless you tell him to think. (Zombie)
Tell him to go straight. A joro, jara, joro.
No break, no job, no sense. A joro, jara, joro.
Tell him to go kill. A joro, jara, joro.
No break, no job, no sense. A joro, jara, joro.
Tell him to go quench. A joro, jara, joro.
No break, no job, no sense. A joro, jara, joro.
Go and kill! (Joro, jaro, joro)
Go and die! (Joro, jaro, joro)
Go and quench! (Joro, jaro, joro)
Put him for reverse! (Joro, jaro, joro)
Joro, jara, joro, zombie went a one way.
Joro, jara, joro, zombie went a one way.
Joro, jara, joro, zombie went a one way.
Joro, jara, joro.
Attention! (Zombie)
Quick march!
Slow march! (Zombie)
Left turn!
Right turn! (Zombie)
About turn!
Double up! (Zombie)
Salute!
Open your hat! (Zombie)
Stand at ease!
Fall in! (Zombie)
Fall out!
Fall down! (Zombie)
Get ready!
HALT!
ORDER!
Dismiss!





Mister Follow Follow"  






bonus tracks
"Observation Is No Crime"  



"Mistake" (Live at the Berlin Jazz Festival, 1978)