Fela Kuti Day

Fela Unorthodox

A Poetical Polemic by Nabiy The Poetician

We should have a Fela day
But what would our decent family members
Our governments
All the authorities say
His Riotous beat and Afrikan Classical lava,
How will they take?

Reading about the life and times of One of Afrika’s indestructible musical forces, I am taken aback.
I am recalling my true purpose in Life. As silly as that might sound, I am as sure of the power of Sound as I am of the ground beneath my feet. The meaning of life is To Love…I Love therefore I am, I am I am I. I am therefore I think.
I think therefore I act, but all my actions are based on purposeful love for Life, God, others.
How, one may ask, but it seems as obvious to breathe as it is to open ones eyes to see, or not to see.
The music when emerging from a creative and naturally engaged mind is pure revelation, articulated through the proper and improper use of instruments.
Perhaps the musical instruments that mankind is presently using are archaic, some may have been around for the past few thousand years while others have emerged as reproductions and re-tuning and evolution of the more ancient ones.
Yet they appear to serve the Purpose quite well if in the hands of a gifted and skilled artist. Indeed there is a future instrument born each and every day, yet the Future and the Past are perfectly captured and illustrated in the process of creating, recording and experiencing music.
There is now a vast amount of things that can be done by using sound, music and the vibrational energies that are inherent in most compositions.

Like Poetry, a song and its writer may not intend to invoke or evoke a specific reaction, but the person who catches on to the music has a unique experience with the way the sound affects him/her.
There is a book I once read, called, A Suitable Music…I think my younger brother Khaya also won it as a prize for his efforts at a school debate, I think it was called Toast Masters, or something along those lines. An Equal Music was written by Vikram Seth, a talented Indian writer who was able in my opinion, to make his literature sing.
Anyway, the music…What can one say about it which has not been written about or recorded so many times even from the vantage point of various disciplines.

When it comes to revolutionary music, it is safe to say that The Devil is in the details…
One cannot hope to fully understand or overstand with a deeper appreciation, the music of classical composers such as Bach or Mozart, without first understanding the cultural milieu and the spiritual experiences or experiments of the master composers.
Similarly, one is half listening to Fela Kuti if one fails to hear, smell and feel the throbbing mystical Life of the Invincible Afrikan Ancestral Shrine, there is something dead and in dire need of spiritual resurrection in that person.

menzi