Fela: This Bitch of A Life by Carlos Moore

Fela: This Bitch of A Life Reviews

• 
  Carlo

  A fearless musician, activist, warrior and leader. Amazing that with every release came an arrest, beating, burning of his residence, etc. When I came upon his music, a style in which I had never before encountered, I had to learn more. His music in which he created, a style and genre all it's own back (when music seemingly could be put into genres) was really only the tip of the iceberg. His stance against colonialism and all that unfolded around him is as amazing as his music. They say he was second only to Nelson Mandela but I question this; was he just too much a threat for the mainstream media outside of Africa as coverage of Fela was certainly warranted. I certainly never heard about him in any of my classes as I had Mandela (meaning no disrespect to Nelson Mandela). I would've given it 5 stars but I believe it could've been put together better. It was great for my short attention span...however others may feel differently.
• 
  Samuel Maina

  I knew I wanted to read this book from the moment I saw its title. In the recent past I got his full discography and now I fully understand Femi’s artistic streak.
  
  I would say he was always an against the grain type of guy. He always looked at the other side of the coin…thought that is not always a good thing. His marriage to the 27 Queens is sort of unbelievable…..I kept wondering what would have happened if he was not sterile. Fela's lack of restraint and misogynism are appalling I do not know what you would give someone to undergo raping, beating, imprisonment, family ostracism; being labelled “prostitutes” and “drug addicts” and still follow suit… the figure seems to have reduced to about 15 wives at a later time but surely…..even with fifteen how would all of them get the attention they deserved?
  
  Running a house with many women means you have to be autocratic with a firm hand. The squabbles no doubt make you a natural leader.
  
  I this book I have learnt about successive regimes in Nigeria and how each successive one seemed to be more violent than the former. The way they dealt with dissidents was a testament to misuse of power and that was exactly what Fela Anikulapo Kuti was highlighting as an artist. The police could not handle him; so they sent the military.
  
  Fela was hard headed and did not seek exile…choosing to remain in Nigeria. Just to quote him “If it is not fit to live in, then our job is to make it fit.” Instead, he chose a life on the margins that rejected all the material excesses of Africa’s post-independence elites. The multiple incarcerations did not seem to water him down; if anything, he came back stronger.
  
  Fela chose to live in a slum and showed recording companies he had his terms. I am surprised Motown came calling with a multi-dollar offer and still got a hand off. The man was simply not interested in compromising his artistic creativity for money.
  
  The death of his mother really shook him. Amazing that he had this much love for the mum after the numerous floggings he got from her. The boy was hard headed…and thus had to be flogged. He talks a lot about his mum and not his dad. Shows the strong maternal bond. Fela came from a well to do family. I learnt that he was sent to London to do medicine and opted to enroll at Trinity College of Music (Against the grain) The Ransome’s were real grit to a smooth surface Fela’s brothers were both respected doctors: Beko (1940–2006) helped form Nigeria’s first human rights organization and in the 1990s was sentenced to life imprisonment at a military tribunal; Koye (1927–2003) was professor of pediatrics at the University of Lagos and deputy director general of the World Health Organization. Their indefatigable sister Yemisi is a patron of the arts and currently executive director of the Nigeria Network of Non-Government Organisations. Did I mention Fela's mum won the Lenin Peace price?
  
  After his mother’s death Fela decides to go spiritual and then his house breaks down. The man had brothers who were respectable doctors but chose not to do western medicine…all the women close to him seem to have gone down with him. Too much drug abuse in his life; I have to say.
  The ruling elite rewarded him with their opprobrium for instigating the neocolonialism evident with the ruling class. The man refused to be called Hildegart…
  
  Some positions he took were unique. He was against the White man education…saying they wanted to brainwash us. When talking about his Grand father he says “The missionaries fully exploited his talent too. They took him to England to do some recordings in London. One of those who took him there was named Ransome. You follow me, man?”
  
  The two books that seem to have had an impact on Kuti’s life are The Saint and An Autobiography of Malcolm X.
  
  Kuti admits that the first time he went to America he was shocked at how big it was….they set for L.A by road and wondered what Little Britain was besides America. The proper introduction to black panther movement by Sandra shifted Femi’s mindset. The books Poems by Nikki Giovanni, The Last Poets (you know, “Niggers Are Afraid of Revolution”), Angela Davis, Martin Luther King, Stokeley Carmichael, Jesse Jackson, Nina Simone’s “Four Women”, Miles Davis. . .
  
  Kuti’s mother was also into books like Chariots of the Gods…
  
  Fela always seemed late to events and what not….his take (kind of philosophical)
  “How can you say I’m late? Just because of the watch you’re wearing on your wrist?” Then I explained. “For instance, let’s say you’re expecting me at 5 o’clock and I’m coming from Abeokuta to Ibadan for this lecture. At 5 o’clock you don’t see me. At 6 o’clock you don’t see me. You’re annoyed. You say, ’Fela is late.’ The next morning you hear I’m dead in an accident. Now, how about that annoyance you felt about my being late? How do you forgive yourself?” So don’t get annoyed when I’m late. Time is not the wristwatch, man. Time is the importance of an event, a moment. Say you’re expecting someone to come. He must be important enough for you not to get annoyed if he keeps you waiting. You must feel the importance of the guy. Time is understanding of what is important. Time is not a mind-disturbing matter. Happiness is the essence of this world.
  When we see our children growing up, we see ourselves getting old. That’s not time. That’s experience. Man must grow old to prove that this is not a world of spirits. If you look back again to your youth, it will be like yesterday. It’s not far. The mind dictates time really. The mind makes you feel what time is about.”
  
  Kuti did his core work in the 70s. Period. It is true when he says "all has been said"
  
  A good read.
• 
  Kojo Baffoe

  Fela Kuti has undergone a bit of a resurgence recently with the musical production around his life currently playing in Nigeria having been produced and performed in the US. Fela was a great unifier as a musician and activist because he operated as an African. The more controversial aspects of his life, like having about 26 wives at some stage, are often held up to overshadow his strong pan-african outlook. This book is written in his words and in the words of those around him, particularly his Queens, and is a worthwhile read for anyone who has been touched by the music of Fela. It is written as he speaks and so be ready to decipher some of the pidgin English although it isn't too heavy.
  
  It was initially published in the early 80s and Carlos Moore spent quite a bit of time with him so it does feel and read authentic.
  
• 
  Sarah

  An interesting book about an interesting life. The interviews with Fela's queens left a bad taste in my mouth as I thought the interviewer was sexist and uninsightful. The epilogue was some of the better writing in the book and most enlightening. I think this is a decent start in learning more about Fela Kuti.
• 
  Christopher

  FELA is a biography of the Nigerian musician and political activist Fela Kuti, originally published in 1982. The Cuban ethnologist Carlos Moore spent hours interviewing Fela and produced an overview of Fela's life and values that Fela authorized. Generally the biography proceeds in the first person, a sign that it was transcribed from interviews.
  
  Moore's biography doesn't speak much of Fela's music, but rather Fela's life and times, especially his numerous run-ins with Nigeria's military regime. There is some good coverage of his formative years, namely his early studies in England, his 1960s doldrums, and his trip to the United States that changed everything.
  
  The term "authorized biography" might lead on to expect that sordid and risque details are left out, but Fela was so sexually flamboyant that he insisted Moore cover his relationships with women in depth. The singer believed in free love and would bed any groupie who came to his compound, usually enjoying multiple women a day. A few years before, Fela had infamously married 27 female members of his entourage and he invited Moore to interview the 15 "queens" who now remained with him. While Fela's lack of restraint and misogynism are appalling, one does have to admire the tenacity of these women who stayed with their man through parental disapproval, beatings by police and soldiers and imprisonment.
  
  The 1982 text has been left unchanged, but Moore has added a poignant epilogue that describes Fela's deterioration over the 1980s and 1990s. First, Fela became increasingly paranoid, believing that spirits were talking to him and that close friends were CIA agents out to get him. Some of his longtime associates left him at this point, and his musicianship suffered, though ironically this is when he was in the greatest demand by international music labels. Then, multiple imprisonments, the regime of Sani Abacha and AIDS managed to silence him over his last years. In compiling a Fela discography and reading critical commentary, I had been puzzled by the obscurity of his late career, and Moore's biography explains why Fela's Seventies achievements form the core of his output.
  
  All in all, as a Fela Kuti fan, I found Moore's biography informative and enjoyable. It could have used more discussion of Fela's music (there's nothing here about his relationship with his band members or stylistic evolution), but it was certainly still worthwhile.
• 
  Dani Dányi

  Magával ragadó figura minden zenész, aki erős rendszerkritikus napirendet képvisel a művészetével. Hogy ez nem csak valamiféle politikai szelep, arra eléggé masszív példa Fela Kuti élete, aki rendes úrigyerek, családja fekete báránya (nem szóvicc), nem átall zenét tanulni Londonban, hogy aztán egy amerikai turné alatt 1969-től vegyen egy nagy nagy kanyart dzsezz-zenész karrierjében. Forradalmár lesz, a Fekete Párducok és Malcolm X, és nemkülönben James Brown mind példamutató lesz amúgy is forrongó politikai igazságérzetének. Kitalál egy zenei formát, ami afrikaibb és érthetőbb, hogy ebben adja át szabadságvágyó és elnyomás-ellenes, pánafrikai üzenetét. Így született meg a hetvenes évek fordulóján az Afro-beat, és amellett hogy sok kortárs zenészt is magával ragadott, azóta is követik és művelik világszerte. (Nagyjából úgy, ahogy a reggae és Bob Marley kultusza: még Magyarországon is van saját Afro-beat kollektívánk, The Mabon Dawud Republic néven nyomják.)
  Mivel tényleg egy óriási hatású zenész és (ha már nem is élő, de) leganda, furcsa hogy milyen keveset tudni az életéről, de hát itt ez a könyv, úgyhogy rendes rajongóként nekiláttam. Izgalmas, kalandos, nagyon bizarr életút tárulkozott ki belőle. Belezuhantam a zenei életrajz olvasás legnyilvánvalóbb kelepcéjébe: amit az ember a zenéből és a színpadi jelenlétből magában felépít, azt simán romba dől, amint a zenész beszélni kezd... Ez persze túlzás, de hát Fela nem éppen egy kompromisszumkereső csávó. Fogta magát, és egy zenész-kollektíva vezetőjeként beköltözött Lagos egyik nyomornegyedébe (a neve Mushin egyébként) és ott nyitott saját klubot, ahol lényegében nonstop szapulta a mindenkori elnyomó rendszereket, az agyatlan és korrupt katonai rezsimeket, és aa fehér ember kolonialista hülyeségét nemkülönben. Lázadást hirdetett a feketéket megzabolázó iskolázás, a korrupt pénzeltüntetések, az urambátyám favoritista rendszer, a -z akkoriban épp csak bontakozgató) globális tőke ellen, a kizsákmányolás ellen, a közösségek erőszakos megosztása, szóval úgy általában az egész állam nevű disznóság ellen. A Kalakuta Republic nevű bázisa ezért népszerű rendőr-razzia célpont volt: rendszeresen betörtek hozzájuk, és zaklatták őket, Fela állandó vendégművésze volt az igazságszolgáltatásnak nevezett testületeknél. Emellett pedig özönlöttek a lelkes és többnyire fiatal rajongók, akiknek úgy hiányzott az önfeledt és dacos szabadság bódulata, mint egy falat kenyér. Van hogy szó szerint.
  Mindez gyökeresen eltér a legtöbb zenei lázadó és "soul rebel" történetétől, hiszen a népszerű zenecsináló emberek többnyire tartózkodnak a politikusok név szerinti kritizálásától, és igyekeznek jó viszonyban lenni legalább a zeneipari nagyhalakkal, ha a hatóságokkal nem is feltétlen. Ekkoriban persze a nyugati világban is üldözték az ellenkultúrát, angliában mondjuk az olyan drogos disszidens zenészeket mint mondjuk a Beatles, vagy amerikában a deviáns hippi kommunistákat mint Allen Ginsbergék. De hogy konkrétan nigériai honvédségi alakulatokkal támadják meg, és pusztítsák földig a lázadó zenész fészkét, lövölfdözzenek, megverjék vagy megerőszakolják (!) az ott nagy számban élő nőket, majd nevezetesen kivágják Fela öreg anyukáját az emeleti ablakon - mindezt meg is énekelte Fela, mégis döbbenet, hogy igaz lehet.
  Szóval Fela Kuti egy rendszerellenes hippi életművész. Sajnos nem igazán szimpatikus dolgai is voltak bőven: nevezetesen iszonyat kemény antifeminista és homofób, valamint mágia és UFO-hívő futóbolond, szegény. Tényleg rémes arról olvasni, ahogy ssaját szájával mondja el ezeket, vagy amikor a 27 feleségből úgy egy tucatnyi interjóban kb ugyanazt a sablon sztorit adja elő, hogy tizenéves iskolásan hogy ment le a klubba megnézni Felát, hogyan lett felszedve, és maradt azóta is engedelmes felesé akinek heti egy, jóesetben két numerára jut ideje a táblázatból hogy kielégítse fantasztikus férjét, akinek háttérvokálozik illetve táncol. De legdurvább tényleg ahogy eluralkodik a '80-as évekre a totális paranoid elmebaj egy személyi kultusz alapú kollektíva vezetőjén, a társaság le nem morzsolódó része pedig hogy megy bele az összeesküvéselméletes játszmákba. Végül szűk évtizednyi betegeskedés után hogy meghalt, derült ki, hogy az általa fehér manipulációnak tartott AIDS végzett vele. Hát, nem lennék az egyik barátnője...
  Az kétségtelen, hogy tartalmas és fordulatos történet ez, és maga a szöveg, ami nagyrészt interjúk és beszélgetések szerkesztett leirata, átad valamit abból a keresetlen és idioszinkratikus minőségből, ami a Fela-jelenséget körüllengi. Sokszor szórakoztatóan, éleslátóan, máskor lapos közhelyekkel, de látható őszinteséggel mondja a magáét, igazásgról, szabadságról, dugásról és zenélésről, meg a mocskos tolvaj politikáról. Az energia is átjön itt-ott, de valahogy besavanyodott nekem a sok rémes, vállalhatatlan ostobaság mellett - nem is tudom, ez a rosszabb, vagy a rengeteg erőszakos hatósági basztatás. Szóval ha a rock n' roll az nem egy tánc, akkor az Afro-beat az hótzicher nem csak az.
  Fela nem gyűjtött vagyont, nem törleszkedett lemezkiadókhoz, nem lett cirkuszi mutatvány. Folyamatosan pénzt és szolgáltatást osztott a közösségének. Hitt abban, amit csinált. Szegényen halt meg, és milliós tömeg búcsúztatta. Van valami iszonyú szomorú ebben az egészben, ami tragikus kicsengéssel ellenpontozza a karneváli, eksztatikus Afro-beat zenét.
• 
  Rob

  Serendipity allowed Carlos Moore to put together this oral history of Fela in 1982, not long after the death of his mother, while an obsession with spirits and ongoing persecution pulled apart his extraordinarily fertile musical world. From here it was pretty well downhill, denying AIDS and slackening the tight control he had over his band and public image. The postscript written in 2008 is actually pretty harrowing, redolent of reading about what happened to Jimmy Page following Kenneth Anger's curse… A winner getting no redemption or clarity sounds worse to us than a loser, it seems. And this book really is Fela warts and all. Inspired, calculating, plain-speaking, sexist, iconoclastic, larger-than-life, spiritual, cloth-eared, self-obsessed, generous… A micro-manager in all regards. We really get a feel for his voice and his outlook, one of the advantages of this oral history format.
  
  We get to meet his queens too; here is a series of mini-interviews that are all essentially underscored with one obvious truth: a musician in his early 30s captivated and brought into his home 20-odd girls between 14 and 19 years of age, most of them from polygamous families. They all looked for the same thing and we can recognise it in many cultures, but very few ended up pregnant with the baby that would make it all incontrovertible. They all suffered during his struggles with successive military regimes. Many of them drifted away and - to his credit here at least - Fela remained supportive and avoided rancour.
  
  I no be gentleman at all o!
  I be Africa man original
  
  Here was a child of privilege turning his back on that privilege and yet becoming a more indelible figure than anyone in his family. Indeed, Fela's music is so protean, so universal, that it will live longer than even he would have imagined. And he is a complicated figure, with outbursts that are as likely to be spot-on as woefully off-target. It is all truly scattershot. But in among the rhetoric and the easy casual sexism, and the harem and the trickster trying to stay one step ahead of the plodding law, we have the slightly inhibited child of privilege learning about Africa from Americans and understanding the need to express his continent in his music but through an international language. And succeeding by grafting jazz and funk onto African shapes. The run of great albums in the 1970s is extraordinary: Shakara, Gentleman, He Miss Road, Expensive Shit, Zombie, Confusion, No Agreement…
  
  So many albums, so many wives, so many fans, so many arguments against the corrupt military leaders; he micromanaged it all, even in the face of frontal assault, until he couldn't keep it going any more and paranoia joined superstition.
  
  This book is a fascinating testament to the moment when it starts unravelling. It's exhilarating, frustrating and also rather sad. It eschews subtleties because Fela doesn't exactly deal in them - subtle rhythms yes, but subtle concepts, not really.
  
• 
  Ehi

  Being Nigerian, I enjoyed reading about this man who shook up the country, and indeed a lot of the world. He was so different and so unapologetically himself. And he really suffered for it!
• 
  Shona Reader

  I loved Fela Kuti the artist and this is the sole reason I read this book. But after going through this biography, his questionable views have made me resent him. A few quotes from the book:
  
  "But they’re not on the same level with men. Men and women are on two different levels. You can say different wavelengths. Man. Woman. Two points that can never meet...It’s as simple as that. You can’t compare them. Equality between male and female? No! Never! Impossible! Can never be! It seems the man must dominate. I don’t want to say so, but it seems so. Women got no other work than making the man happy."
  
  "Sex is a gift of nature. So why do men make laws to check it? A law deciding whan a woman’s ready to fuck. Some women are ready when they’re nine; some when they’re thirty. What’s natural can’t be illegal."
  
  "The marriage institution for the progress of the mind is evil. I learned that from prison. Why do people marry? Is it to be together? Is it to have children? People marry because they are jealous."
  
  After reading this supposedly official biography of him, to me Fela still remains an unknown quantity.
• 
  sisraelt

  Easy enough to get through! A glimpse into FELA's life but no real depth despite the sense of familiarity you get. Really an introduction for most or a re-evaluation for those who have an idea. Loved the photos that accompanied the interviews with his wives (beauties)! He lived a simple life and was a true activist. Any recommendations is some more telling biographies on FELA?
• 
  Ryan

  I wished this talked more about his music. I started losing interest when his wives were each interviewed - not because they're boring (they're not), but because Carlos Moore, the interviewer, keeps asking them all the same questions and they each give the same answers.
  
  Overall, though, I enjoyed this account of Africa's foremost musical genius.
• 
  Phil Overeem

  A very entertaining and informative book. Most chapters are "narrated" by Fela through edited interview transcriptions, which are plenty wild and fiery. Most notable, though, is the time given to some of Kuti's 27 wives and a few of his musical colleagues. Recommended.
• 
  Akintunde

  Fela: This bitch of a life, is the biography of the legendary Afro-beat originator(though he never agreed to playing Afro-beat. He dubbed his music style African Music), the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti aka Black President, Abami Eda, Chief Priest of Shrine.
  
  Originally published in France in 1982 as Cette putain dé vie (This Bitch of a Life) by Carlos Moore. The book is written in the first person, making it read like a narration by Fela himself.
  
  All great men usually have their Achilles' heel which was all too evident for Fela. No man is perfect. Yes he had his weaknesses and let them take hold of him, but the fact still remains that Fela was one of a kind. He was direct, never hiding his feelings or thoughts. He was kind, compassionate, creative and friendly. He was a man of the people, loved by the people and who fought for the people, just like his mother before him.
  
  The book, a short one did not capture all of the entirety of Fela but it was enough to shed light on his ideology, activisms(not violent), his wives, struggles and also the downhill years that led to his death. This is a great book about one of Africa's great ones. Unlike other Music greats of that time who used their music to speak against social injustices in subtle and veiled ways. Fela was direct. Never afraid to call out names. Which cost him riches and affluence.
  A very good read into the the life of a man whose name and legacy lives on.
  
  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
• 
  Eric

  This was a disappointing read. I've been enjoying the music behind the man that founded his own musical style, Afro-beat, but this book didn't provide any insight into his music at all! Instead, it focused on his radical ideas, interspersed with commentary from friends and lovers.
  He was a political dissident and his views on a single pan-African nation were pretty commendable. Fela was beaten and imprisoned by his own (Nigerian) government repeatedly due to these views. His own mother was thrown out of a second story window during a raid on his house and later died because of her injuries.
  The sad parts, and there are many sad, disgusting parts of this book, are related to his social views. He married 27 women in 1978 and slept with them on a revolving door basis. It was very bizarre when fifteen of the wives, literally in a row, are interviewed and reveal how Fela played favorites and beat them on occasion. Sick stuff. Polygamy was pretty common in that part of Africa, but still.
  Another sad fact about Fela is that he was super homophobic, against equal rights for women, and even though he died of AIDS, he was discriminatory against people with the affliction. He suffered from AIDS-related complications, but he never accepted that he had the disease.
  I feel like I know more about the man (I wish I didn't actually), but I really just wanted to learn more about the music. I mean, this guy recorded 50+ albums with tons of different players, including Tony Allen, who is one of my favorite drummers of all-time, but Moore couldn't cover even one of them? B.S. Maybe we'll never get the insight now since Fela's been dead for over a decade.
  Oh, hats off to the Sioux City, SD library system from whom I got this book. I have a hard time believing it'll ever get checked out there, but who knows. I'm glad I read it, but it left me feeling empty, sad, and unsatisfied.
• 
  Caio Chaves

  Me surpreendi com o livro. Já tinha um carinho pelo Fela Kuti e principalmente pela trajetória dele como artista, o qual o acho brilhante e extremamente incompreendido até os dias atuais.
  Não é um livro finalizado e nem acho que Moore conseguiria terminar ou tentar fechar essa biografia, já que o biografado estava vivo na época em que foi iniciado a obra. A questão de ser em 1° pessoa, quase como um relato do próprio Fela Kuti esbarra em alguns problemas e se torna cansativo, parece uma longa transcrição das conversas entre o biografado e o autor, o que não permite um olhar mais crítico e até mesmo reflexivo sobre as contradições de Fela, que são inúmeras.
  A segunda metade do livro se torna cansativa pelo excesso de entrevistas com as Queens, que a maioria não tem lá muito a dizer e parece apenas ocupar as páginas. Ao final do livro somos confrontados com relatos sobre o que aconteceu com Fela após o início dos anos de 1980 e por aí vai...muito corrido e sem maiores detalhes e explicações para algumas ações que realmente poderiam render capítulos interessantes.
  É um relato interessante e válido de um dos maiores e mais interesses artistas negros do século XX, o problema é que a sensação final é de que é um livro inacabado, talvez pelo próprio biografado narrar a versão desses curiosos fatos de sua vida. Ficou a ideia de um livro que precisava ser maturado o conteúdo e Carlos Moore, embora não apareça com sua voz crítica no texto, fez falta e precisava amarrar melhor algumas questões que o livro apenas passa superficialmente.
• 
  Morakinyo Beckley

  Shocking, riveting, roller coaster, moving and sometimes pitiful, the book aroused a lot of emotions and thrusts one into the almost chaotic life of the contrarian popularly referred to as President of the Masses.
  
  The author was able to gain access to intimate aspects of a man classified as iconic while alive, yet despised, told about how chaotic his life will be (through the medium that his equally iconic mother revealed in his early years) yet became more influential that all members of his activist family (up to his siblings and off-springs).
  
  Interesting narration from Fela himself was a unique style that kept me glued to the book's content for the few days I read it and despite a few details that I felt were not clearly elaborated on (details of the wives, which I believed were simply skimmed as if were appendages and who were asked the same questions and in a very annoying and vexing boring format, his musical and business successes rather than the failures), I appreciated delving into a summary of the shaping of a cultural part of Nigeria's music and the controversial icon that put the name of Nigeria on the world map. On his own terms.
• 
  Hex75

  su fela kuti si è scritto parecchio, con storie che spesso finiscono nel mito: carlos moore in questa biografia sceglie di dar voce direttamente a fela e a coloro che lo conobbero tra cui -in un forse troppo lungo capitolo- a parte delle sue mogli. quello che esce fuori è un ritratto sicuramente sincero, che non censura gli aspetti meno accettabili dell'artista (un certo sessimo -anche se a suo modo bilanciato dalla sua volontà di proteggere le sue mogli- e una tirata omofoba, per non parlare della pessima situazione degli ultimi anni della sua vita, che moore giustamente non censura) ma che rende omaggio in tutto e per tutto alla sua forza d'animo, al suo coraggio e alla sua inventiva, esaltando il suo vero anticonformismo (come sarebbe bastato poco per trasformalo già in vita in un'icona alla marley....e il suo rifiuto del music business e delle sue regole lo rendono ancora più grande). però forse avrei preferito qualche pagina in più dedicata ai dischi e magari qualche intervista ai suoi musicisti, ed è questo che non mi fa gridare al miracolo.
• 
  Mercy

  Parts of this book were difficult to read (especially the parts about Fela's Queens. Their decisions to stick with him despite the hell they'd been through is something only they would understand cause even the interviewer didn't capture sensible reasons.
  Best way I can describe the man who's music I've come to respect is that he was human (more human than most people in my opinion) and also that he was greater than the sum of his parts.
• 
  Bola

  It open my eyes to soo much about Africas struggle and not just Fela's.
• 
  Asabagna

  Read my review here:
  http://jazzuloo.blogspot.com/2011/09/...
• 
  Johan Martin

  An amazing artist risking everything, not just album sales, to protest against injustice. Also inspired me to learn more about his mother and Nigeria.
• 
  Agbonmire

  
  
  Love, love it. Can't say more than just to advice that if you haven't read this book, you are missing.
• 
  Tolu Agunbiade

  Amazing!!!
• 
  Femi Kush

  I love the man...
• 
  Omobulejo Olusola

  Excellent read with great expressions in Fela's voice.
• 
  Tom Buchanan

  This was ridiculous.