Yesterday was my birthday, and a family friend got us some great tickets to see a show on Broadway that I must admit is the only show i've ever wanted to see on Broadway, It was a perfect birthday event. If you don't know about Fela Kuti you must go and read and listen to everything you can about him. I finally got tuned in and turned on to him about 12 years ago. Just a few years after he died. He was incredible, and this tribute on Broadway was fucking great. My wife took these shots outside the theater before we went in to the matinee.
Below i'm going to try to find a few good samples of his music. Do yourself a favor, read on, and dig a bit into the crates yourself, I own at least a dozen of his albums.
1st Fela song I ever heard, got the album on my birthday from Ian Mackaye 12 years ago:
more cool stuff:
a favorite collaboration
I also was lucky enough to see his son Femi Kuti perform here in New York several times in the last decade. Inspired by some of the greatest shows in the last 20 years, I shot some great photos (a few below) of him that I included in the FUCK YOU TOO update. (which by the way is another of our titles that are only available direct now.)
Happy birthday, Glen. Glad you enjoyed the show. I saw it a couple of months ago & was very very pleasantly surprised. Just fantastic. If you think about it, it's just about a miracle that this made it to the Broadway level. How great is the band? - Tim
ReplyDeletehappy birthday fella. yes good old fela I often have him on a loop to work to.
ReplyDeletewow, id never heard of this guy before, big ups yo.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this. I follow your blog for the photography and political information you post, but this just totally took me by surprise. i went out and found a plethora of music by Fela and have been so engrossed in it, its already starting to influence my own music.
ReplyDeletethanks for this, happy birthday and also thanks for being an inspiration for me as a photographer.
-Rich