Were Afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, alive today, his numerous fans would be warming up to mark his 75th birthday. Fela was a scourge to dictatorial regimes in Nigeria for much of his musical career, through the medium of Afrobeat.
His main source of inspiration was his revulsion at the injustice and brutality of bestial leaders across Africa, reveals Afrobeat historian, Chris May. In a commentary , gave an insight into how musical legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, got the inspiration for one of his greatest hits, Sorrow, tears & blood,
As part of the posthumous celebration of Fela’s 75th birthday, American entertainment company, Knitting Factory, recently released a commentary on Fela by May.
In the piece, May says one of Fela’s greatest hits, Sorrow, tears & blood,” was an impassioned attack on violence by the police and military against political dissenters in Africa.
It was among the first albums Fela released following the Nigerian Army’s destruction of his Kalakuta Republic on February 18, 1977. However, Fela came back fighting. One of the LP’s early front sleeve designs was a photograph showing Fela onstage in the aftermath of the outrage, his left leg in plaster from foot to knee. Fela said the album was dedicated “to the memory of those who were beaten, raped, tortured or injured” during the Kalakuta attack.
Fela’s recording company, Decca, refused to release Sorrow Tears & Blood, fearing government reprisals but Fela responded by setting up Kalakuta Records and making the album the label’s debut release.
May quotes Fela’s friend and sleeve designer, Ghariokwu Lemi, as saying that the Afrobeat legend actually wrote the lyrics in the weeks following the South African apartheid regime’s crushing of the Soweto uprising on June 16, 1976. ‘Sorrow Tears & Blood’ was added to Afrika 70’s set list the next month, and was probably recorded around August or September.
The historian stated that Lemi was with Fela the night news came in of the Soweto massacre. Lemi said, “Early in the evening of Wednesday, June 16, 1976, we drove to Ikate, Surulere, in Lagos, to visit Fela’s immediate family: his first wife, Remi, and three children, Yeni, Femi and Sola. They lived away from all the drama at Kalakuta. At 9pm on television, came news from South Africa that shocked the world. Defenceless primary school students, protesting against the enforced use of the Afrikaans language, had been shot dead by police in Soweto. We all jumped up from our seats in shock at such beast-like brutality. We discussed this all night long and all week thereafter.
“A few weeks later, Fela rehearsed a new composition, inspired by a brutality-catalogue consisting of his own experiences, clashes between the police and university students, and other confrontations between the army and communities around Nigeria. He wove into this the growing repression by the racist police in apartheid South Africa. All this acted as material for a magnificent new song titled ‘Sorrow Tears & Blood’, STB, on the Afrobeat menu.”
May says that by the time the song was eventually recorded, Lemi had listened to Fela perform it at the Shrine and other venues scores of times.
Lemi says, “My mind was set on the approach to take on my cover art. Having been privy to the rationale behind the message, I thought I was home free with my concept, like always. Fela was ghoulish in his description of a typical scenario of a police or military raid and its effect. He was caustic in his admonition of a people who were too afraid to stand up for freedom and justice.
“Since Fela had composed ‘Sorrow Tears & Blood,’ a lot of water had passed under the bridge. Kalakuta Republic had been sacked by one thousand soldiers in a very horrendous raid in broad daylight. I put a bold, stoical and fearless Fela image on my canvas. My painting showed a crowd running away from an unseen cause; an empty road with a single military boot lost in the melee; a vulture waiting for a meal; soldiers meting out jungle justice; a screaming woman lost to fear.”
May says that Lemi thought he had “nailed this cover for good,” but on presenting it to Fela for approval, he “found it was not my lucky day.”
Fela hated the sleeve, regarding it as ‘defeatist’: he particularly hated the detail showing a group of people running away from the police. The argument led to an estrangement between Fela and Lemi which lasted eight years.
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