In these independent celebratory mood in Nigeria, AfricaMusicOnline dug up a rare Fela Ransome-Kuti single in his early musical career as our record of the week in the first week of October 2020.
On RK records, Fela calls it Independa in his unmistakable vocal style and the abrasive brass flavour that reminds you of his early musical years.
As Richie Troughton wrote in The Quietus.com, “You get a feel for how the group’s highlife rhythms fuse with Fela’s jazz licks on the trumpet, inspired by Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, showing a steadier side of the group, as snaky saxophone lines weave around Fela’s vocals, transporting the influence of American jazz musicians back to Africa”.
The highlife oriented jazz flavour that is embedded in Fela’s sound of the sixties got a shot in the arm after his return from an American tour in early 1970’s that subsequently changed his music into Afrobeat that was later to take his music to a worldwide audience waiting all along for Africa’s musical explosion.
