submitted on Mon, 10/15/2007 - 13:54 in Fela Group by alias3 
Biography
Fela Anikulapo Kuti was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria. His mother, was a feminist active in the anti-colonial movement and his father, a Protestant minister and school Principal, was the first president of the Nigerian Union of Teachers.
In 1958 Fela went to London with the intention of studying medicine but decided to study music instead at the Trinity College of Music. While there, he formed the band Koola Lobitos, playing a style of music that he would later call Afrobeat. The style was a fusion of American Jazz and Funk with West African Highlife. In 1961, Fela married his first wife, Remilekun (Remi) Taylor, with whom he would have three children (Femi, Yeni and Sola). In 1969, Fela took the band to the United States where he discovered the black power movement through Sandra Smith(now Isidore) a partisan of the Black Panther Party which would heavily influence his music and political views and renamed the band "Nigeria 70".
He then formed the Kalakuta Republic, a commune, a recording studio and a home for many connected to the band which he later declared independent from the Nigerian state. Fela set up a nightclub in the Empire Hotel, named the Afro-Spot and then the Afrika Shrine, where he performed regularly. He made the decision to sing in Pidgin English so that his music could be enjoyed by individuals all over Africa, where the local languages spoken are very diverse and numerous. As popular as Fela's music had become in Nigeria and elsewhere, it was also very unpopular with the ruling government, and raids on the Kalakuta Republic were frequent. In 1974 the police arrived with a search warrant and a cannabis joint, which they had intended to plant on Fela. He became wise to this and swallowed the joint. In response, the police took him into custody and waited to examine his feces. Fela enlisted the help of his prison mates and gave the police someone else's feces, and Fela was freed. He then recounted this tale in his release Expensive Shit.
In 1977 Fela and the Afrika 70 released the hit album Zombie, a scathing attack on Nigerian soldiers using the "zombie" metaphor to describe the methods of the Nigerian military. The album was a smash hit with the people and infuriated the government, setting off a vicious attack against the Kalakuta Republic, during which one thousand soldiers attacked the commune. Fela was severely beaten, and his elderly mother was thrown from a window, causing fatal injuries. The Kalakuta Republic was burned, and Fela's studio, instruments, and master tapes were destroyed. In 1978 Fela married twenty seven women, many of whom were his dancers and singers to mark the anniversary of the attack on the Kalakuta Republic.
Despite the massive setbacks, Fela was determined to come back. He formed his own political party, which he called "Movement of the People". In 1979 he put himself forward for President in Nigeria's first elections for more than a decade but his candidature was refused. In 1984 he was again attacked by the Military government, who jailed him on a dubious charge of currency smuggling. His case was taken up by several human-rights groups, and after twenty months, he was released from prison. On his release he divorced his twelve remaining wives. In 1986, Fela performed in Giants Stadium in New Jersey as part of the Amnesty International "Conspiracy of Hope" concert, sharing the bill with Bono, Carlos Santana, and The Neville Brothers.
His album output slowed in the 1990s, and eventually he stopped releasing albums altogether. The battle against military corruption in Nigeria was taking its toll, especially during the rise of dictator Sani Abacha. Rumors were also spreading that he was suffering from an illness for which he was refusing treatment. On August 3, 1997 Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, already a prominent AIDS activist and former Minister of Health, stunned the nation by announcing his younger brother's death a day earlier from Kaposi's sarcoma brought on by AIDS. More than a million people attended Fela's funeral at the site of the old Shrine compound.
