By Toye Olori
LAGOS, Jan 20 1998 (IPS)

The life of the legendary Afro-beat musician Fela Anikulapo-Kuti has been captured in a new publication by the Musicial Foundation of Nigeria.

The publication, “Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (Abami Eda: 1938-1997 – A World Press Tribute)” covers the late musician’s life from the time of his birth in 1938, until his death in 1997, and is viewed here as a historical record for researchers on Nigerian music and musicians.

Launched here recently, the opening chapters of the book point out that the famed musician who stamped his own revolutionary style of music onto the world scene was born during the turmoil of World War II and spent his youth in the subsquent turbulent years of the cold war and the birth of the independent nations of Africa.

“Fela was nurtured on revolution and it was as if he was divinely destined to play the roles which he did in later years,” says Bayo Martins, one of Fela’s closest allies and author of the publication. He compares Fela with his late activist-mother, Olufunmilayo Ransome-Kuti.

“While, for instance, Mrs. Olufunmilayo Ransome-Kuti was a frontliner in the nationalist campaigns for Nigerian independence, she also mobilised Egba (their home area) women against taxation without representation, the fall-out of which resulted in the temporary exile of the traditional ruler of the town, Oladapo Ademola, in 1948,” Martins recalls in the book.

Fela’s death is recaptured in the publication through numerous national and international media reports during the month of August 1997. The musician died of heart failure and other complications from the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

The history of Fela’s musical career is told not only through Martins’ voice, but also through the voices’ of fans and friends worldwide, whose published reactions to his death are a central component of the book.

Martins has described Fela as a ‘sage’. “The late sage notwithstanding his many travails, plodded on, proclaiming his immortality, spirituality and indestructability; the theatrics and stage rhetorics were well oiled and convincing. His wards and disciples believed he could not die”.

While on his sick bed early last year, Fela said he would live for another 120 years.

“People did not realised then that Fela was speaking philosophically, alluding to his music, rather than himself,” Martins said. “That, at least, was how things stood before August 2, 1997.”

Martins says that although Fela was loved both at home and internationally for his independent spirit and for his original music, Fela did not use his international influence enough to enhance the status of the profession in Nigeria…”he was never interested in the collective.”

Fela, who died two months before his 59th birthday, was the originator of the Afro-beat music, which blended high-life, soul and jazz to form the now internationally known beat. “London and Los Angeles(USA), we were informed, stood still for Fela (after learning of his death).” This was an indication that his death was a lost not just to Nigerians, but to fans worldwide, Martins observes.

At home, Fela also left a political mark. He had many brushes with the Nigerian authorities, because of his criticism, through his lyrics, of military governments and Nigerian leaders.

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