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List of contents
Preface
Introduction
1. Fela Anikulapo-Kuti and Fela Studies
2. Fela in Historical Perspectives
Part A History And Culture
3. Natal Tales: Fela and His Family
4. The Performative Rhythm: From Highlife to Afrobeat
5. The “Woman Question”: Fela and His Women
Part B Fela, Art, and Politics
6. Fela and Postcolonial Political Economy of Nigeria
7. The Politics of Fela’s Music
8. Fela’s Use of Language
9. Postcoloniality and Art in Fela and His Afrobeat
Part C Fela and Felasophy
10. Cultural Imperatives in Fela's Music
11. Fela's Thoughts on African Indigenous Knowledge Systems
12. Fela and Pan-Africanism
13. Blackism: Fela’s Political Philosophy
14. Freedom and Excesses: Fela and Social Eccentricities
Part D Fela In The Future
15. Post-Fela: Afrobeat as Memorialization
16. Fela as a Legacy
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Adeshina Afolayan is a senior lecturer of philosophy at University of Ibadan, Nigeria. His areas of specialization include African philosophy, political philosophy and cultural studies. He is the editor of Auteuring Nollywood (2014), author of Philosophy and National Development in Nigeria (2018), the coeditor of the Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy(2017), and the coeditor of Pentecostalism and Politics in Africa (2018).Toyin Falola is Professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, and the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. He is an Extraordinary Professor of Political Science, University of Pretoria. He has received over 30 lifetime career awards and 24 honorary doctorates.
Summary
Fela Anikulapo Kuti was the Afrobeat music maestro whose life and time provide the lens through which we can outline the postcolonial trajectory of the Nigerian state as well as the dynamics of most other African states. Through the Afrobeat music, Fela did not only challenge consecutive governments in Nigeria, but his rebellious Afrobeat lyrics facilitate a philosophical subtext that enriches the more intellectual Afrocentric discourses. Afrobeat and the philosophy of blackism that Fela enunciated place him right beside Malcolm X, Kwame Nkrumah, Marcus Garvey, and all the others who champion a black and African mode of being in the world. This book traces the emergence of Fela on the music scene, the cultural and political backgrounds that made Afrobeat possible, and the philosophical elements that not only contributed to the formation of Fela’s blackism, but what constitutes Fela’s philosophical sensibility too.
Foreword
Reappraises the life, musical dynamics, and philosophy of Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti, and positions his music within the context of Africa's search for freedom.
Additional text
This provocative and very readable book is the most rigorous and learned attempt yet to understand Fela not just as an artist, but as a political philosopher shaped by his time and place. As the musician's posthumous reputation continues to grow, Afolayan and Falola do not merely celebrate Fela and his concept of blackism, but also engage critically with his apparent blind spots and inconsistencies as a thinker and performer, particularly in matters of gender and sexuality. Stimulating reading for historians of pan-African thought as well as Fela enthusiasts.
