Gabriel Gbadamosi on Fela Kuti

Great Lives

BBC

Documentary, History, Society & Culture

4.2 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 13 August 2013

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

Poet, playwright, and critic Gabriel Gbadamosi chooses as his Great Life the political maverick and inventor of Afrobeat, musician Fela Kuti, and tells Matthew Parris why his work deserves to be better known.

Whether withstanding ferocious beatings from the Nigerian police, insulting his audiences, or demanding a million pounds in cash upfront from Motown records, his strength and stubbornness were legendary, and his gift for controversy unmatched.

Fela had more than 25 wives, some of whom he beat, and was President of his own self proclaimed Republic. He smoked dope and was the scourge of the rulers of a corrupt Nigerian state and was acclaimed as having the best live band on earth.

Gabriel Gbadamosi is joined by Stephen Chan, professor of International Relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, to discuss the musical and political life of this outspoken force of nature.

Presenter: Matthew Parris

Producer: Melvin Rickarby

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.

Transcript

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0:45.0	In these programs, it can be fun to compare my guest's choice of Great Life with his or her
0:50.6	own life. That might prove difficult today because my guest choice had more than
0:55.7	25 wives, was president of his own republic, dope-smoking scourge of the rulers of a corrupt Nigerian
1:02.2	state and acclaimed as having the best live band on earth.
1:06.0	He was fellow Kooti, creator of Afrobeat. My guest who's chosen fellow kooty is Gabriel Badamorsi, poet, playwright, novelist and critic, and I'm guessing a big fan of his music.
1:34.0	Yes, I am a great fan of fellas music.
1:37.0	He's basically telling people, look, this is the reality of the way the state oppresses and fiends in your lives, which they always do, and with great violence
1:46.2	in Nigeria.
1:47.2	And he does it with a kind of maniacal kind of laugh.
1:50.8	And the music will take you on a very very long river journey of sound towards I think
1:57.2	something better something spiritual and something strong which also emerges out of the people
2:01.9	a far stronger river than the imposition of this former state violence.
	...

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