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Finding The Musical World Of Fela Kuti
I’m listening to one of my favorite Fela Kuti songs titled Just Like That on Soundcloud. This is a live version of the track he did in Detroit in the 1980s. This song strangely gets better every time I listen to it, which is almost every day. The first listen was already incredible, but the second, third, and so forth just sounds more engaging.
Also every time I listen to it, there are several parts of the song that I’ll replay over and over just to hear his band lock in on a groove and maintain it for…FOREVER. This is the routine with every Fela Kuti song that I liked. I’ve been listening to his music now for eight years now! Every now and then, I’ll take a break from it, but then, I find myself wanting more of his grooves.
It’s an addiction that I can’t be cured of.
THE BEGINNING
In 2013, I discovered his name while reading a James Brown biography one day online. As a person who’s obsessed with Brown’s music (his late 60s-70s era), I was interested in seeing the artists who were influenced by him and I saw this name, Fela Kuti. I was curious about it because just the name Fela Kuti is so cool to me.
So I looked him up on YouTube to check out some of the music. I see a title of one of his songs called Shuffering and Shmilling. ‘’Hmmm, this could be interesting’’ I thought…
