History tells us that unless your surname actually is Kuti it’s best to stay away from Fela Kuti’ legacy. Sure you can cite his influence in interviews, fiddle with an iconic riff during a solo, but tackle one of his tunes? History is littered with mediocre attempts, as it’s impossible to compete with the power, the anger, the beauty, and the ego in his tunes. Fela was a force of nature, an enigma. You’re always going to come off second best to an enigma. Whilst sons Femi and more recently Seun have periodically dropped the odd tune from their late father’ remarkable oeuvre into their live sets, even in their adept hands the tunes still feel like little more than a homage. Of course that’s not a bad thing, Fela’ legacy, as the inventor and sonic/ political agitator of Afrobeat understandably continues to loom large even two decades after his death.
Red Hot & Fela is the 18th in a series of compilations designed to raise awareness and money for the global fight against HIV/ Aids, and this is their second Fela centric release. The link to Fela is that it’s wildly understood that Fela was a victim of the disease, and that his ability to unite Africa though his music in 2013 is possibly more relevant than ever. As a result they’ve assembled a collection of American and African musicians in unusual collaborations to varying degrees of success.
The tunes that come the furthest from Fela’ tradition are the ones that work the best here – the artists who try to bring Fela into their world, rather than take this as an opportunity to enter his.
There’ a real house music feel running through this collection, which is strange, as surely transforming Fela’ urgent revolutionary sounds into something as vacant as house music is the ultimate betrayal of his legacy. In a sense though it’s this very act that is the most revolutionary aspect of this album – it’s definitely the most contentious. There’ something about house music that seems to be the antithesis of everything that Fela stood for and Spoek Mathambo and Zakbrhaim shouty electro funk take on Yellow Fever is a prime example of this, a fascinating and totally misguided attempt to take a song about Africans lightening their skins and turn it into electro wallpaper.
US singer Childish Gambino and Kenyan House Disco outfit Just a Band offer an electro loungey take on Who No Know Go Know complete with excerpt from a Fela interview. Gambino offers a hip-hop intro and the piece descends into slick nu jazz house, which again is very strange.
There’ banging electro pop of Nneka Sinkane, Amayo & Superhuman Happiness’ take on No Buredi, and they’ve totally nailed the guitar sound, taking Fela to the club, complete with occasional vocodered vocals. Again it’s totally bizarre, but this time they’ve captured the energy.
My Morning Jacket’s intro to Trouble Sleep is so thick and slow it’s almost molasses, a thing of beauty, taking afrobeat to indie rock, with a beautiful Cortez era Neil Young guitar solo, and synth instead of horns. It’s a rare kind of instrumental genius, though ultimately the vocals of Merril Garbus (Tune-yards) and Brittany Howard (Alabama Shakes), drag it back into the realm of homage, and not a good one at that, it’s also possibly longer than the original which doesn’ help.
The highlight comes from Kronos Quartet’s plucked and whistled take on Sorrow Tears and Blood with Antibalas saxophonist Stuart Bogie and TV on The Radio’ Kype Malone and Tunde Adebimpe. They offer a kind of chamber funk and dramatically increase the mournful nature of what is already a pretty angry and sad tune.
Gender Infinity offer a really curious take on Highlife Time with slowed down ethereal vocals that almost ignore the twitchy synth pop happening underneath them, offering an almost redemptive take on what was originally a party tune from his early days. This is one of the few tunes on Red Hot and Fela that actually adds pathos rather than going the other way.
“If we turned off the TV we could really see,†US rapper M1, the Congolese rapper Baloji and Tony Allen offer on Afrodisco Beat 2013, a driving hip hop piece, with dubbed out horns and Tony Allen’ trademark swinging rhythms.
There’ a real mish mash of styles here, lots of hip hop and electronic music as Fela’ ideas are clipped, nipped, tucked, and dragged onto a pristine dance floor, into indie pop realms, and strange electro house netherworlds, as Afrobeat is reimagined and recontextualised, viewed through a 2013 prism. As a result the politics, the meanings of the songs change, and to be honest, it all feels a little lighter, less meaningful. That said this is a really unique and endlessly fascinating record. There are moments of sublime genius bookended with moments of vacant delusion, yet even the chaff is compelling as you can’ help but wonder what Fela would make of it all.
