Monday, July 02, 2007

Fela SHOUTS!!!

So I think I finally got this whole recording from vinyl thing figured out... I'm not yet in possession of the best hardware I could possibly have, but I have a more or less functional setup for now. What I have found myself lacking now, though, is the time. Denis and I have been sliding back into serious pre-production on Phase II of TOO MUCH BEAUTIFUL WOMAN (ha! must be a millennium since your man typed that majestically majuscular marquee-filler 'pon this page!) so setting up the turntable, making sure the records play through without skips, then editing the AIFFs and converting them to mp3s is just not something I can dedicate myself to at the moment.

Thank God for John B.

Our man has been lacing me up with a steady stream of music to post up here (did I just say "lacing me up"? Does anybody actually still use that term? Man, the 90s feel like such a long time ago!) and today we have another Fela rarity: 1986's I GO SHOUT PLENTY!!!

You'll notice that despite being released during the Egypt 80 era, the record is credited to "Fela and Afrika '70"... That's because the I GO SHOUT PLENTY!!! LP was actually recorded in 1977 (with "Frustration of My Lady" on the B side) but went unreleased for nine years until Decca chose to put it out without Fela's permission. The new B side, "Why Black Man Dey Suffer" was recorded for a 1977 album of the same name (with "Male" on the B side) but was also shelved by Decca.

(You might have seen a slightly bootleg-looking CD in the market called Why Black Man Dey Suffer, with "Ikoyi Mentality Versus Mushin Mentality " on the B side. That's a completely different version on a different LP recorded in 1971 for EMI; they didn't release it, so it came out under the African Songs label. Confusion break bone!)

Anyway, here's a clip from Jeremy Marre's Konkombe: The Nigerian Pop Music Scene:



I uploaded this clip yesterday because I had planned to talk up this theory Denis has about Fela and politics: He says that while Fela was generally thought of by most people (including himself) as a "political" artist, he was really more of a satirist, and the deeper he got into politics, the more detrimental it was to his music. It alienated a lot of his fans in the 80s, and it definitely pushed away his musicians, leading to the Afrika 70 mutiny.

We'll talk about that later, though.

Interesting thing, though: When I uploaded this clip, Dele Sosimi, with whom I had been chatting online earlier that day, messaged me to tell me that he was the skinny youth you see sitting in a chair leafing through a book. I asked him what the hell he was doing flipping through the pages so fast, like, was he really reading it or just playing to the camera? Turns out it was a book on jazz improvisation and he was trying to memorize some licks! That kinda surprised me because I really didn't know that any of Fela's musicians were, you know, musically literate (especially not the Egypt 80 players, who were generally younger and less experienced than the Afrika 70).



> DOWNLOAD IT! <

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Am I the only one who's having trouble with the Divshare link?

Comb & Razor said...

no, you are not.... i was having trouble with DivShare last night and it took several attempts before i could get on.

tried again this morning and it was just straight impossible to access the site.

hopefully, this shall pass.

Comb & Razor said...

thanks a lot, Tony!

to be honest, i had actively attempted to get myself added to a few of the Naija blogrolls/aggregators at some point, but they never showed me any love... i just assumed that i wasn't cool enough for them!

davemustang.... said...

Thank you very much for this rarity! Over the years my musical taste has expanded and evolved greatly to encompasse all sorts of musics I never really knew too much about. My Fela knowledge, up until last year was confined to Zombie and He Miss Road, now I can't wait to discover the next revelation!

Thanks very much

davemustang....

Comb & Razor said...

glad to be of service, dave... thanks for checking us out!

Anonymous said...

thanks Comb & Razor!!

i've linked to your blogpost at the african music thread at sfrp:
http://tinyurl.com/3yvc8f

greets
goldfinger

Comb & Razor said...

SkaFunkRastaPunk, huh?

sounds interesting!

looks like i have to register just to take a look at it, though...

hmmm...

Anonymous said...

hey Comb & Razor,

sorry i forgot.. you have to register, but it is fun...

visit the world-section ;-)

greets goldfinger

Comb & Razor said...

alright... i'll check it out.

thanks!

Anonymous said...

Love Fela and Afrika70 and love the blog.Thanx for keepin it funky!
chronwell08

Comb & Razor said...

glad you like it, chronwell08!