Man of the World

London, LA, Nigeria, there were many stops on Fela Kuti’s route to Afrobeat.

Jim Irvin

IN 1958, teenaged Nigerian musician Fela Kuti enrolled at London’s Trinity College Of Music as a trumpeter. He was a keen student, both at college and in the capital’s jazz clubs, where he spectated and took part. That’s where local boy Ginger Baker met him. “Fela used to come to sit in at the all-nighters in the Flamingo,” Baker said in 2012. “He was playing trumpet then and he was good.” Fela started his own band, Fela Ransome Kuti & His Highlife Rakers, then returned to Nigeria in 1963 with a new band, Koola Lobitos, who signed to EMI. In 1967 he began developing Afrobeat, the blend of funk, jazz, calypso and traditional Yoruba rhythms that would make his name. A trip to Los Angeles in 1969, where he encountered…

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MOJO (Digital) - 1 Issue, December 2021

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