From: Kunle Ibirogba <ibirogbak@yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 4:05 PM
Subject: Edo_Global. Fela's enduring legacy
To: NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com, EdoGlobal <edo_global@yahoogroups.com>, OmoOdua@yahoogroups.com, "naijaelections@yahoogroups com" <naijaelections@yahoogroups.com>, talkhard@yahoogroups.com, nigeriaroundtable@yahoogroups.com, Nigerian World Forum <nigerianworldforum@yahoogroups.com>, igboworldforum@yahoogroups.com, "NaijaObserver@yahoogroups com" <naijaobserver@yahoogroups.com>, Nigerianid <nigerianid@yahoogroups.com>
Back in the day when it was fashionable for men to be comrades, revolutionaries and anti-military militants, the happening place was The Shrine. Here, the laws were 'upside down,' everything was 'original' and 'no artificiality' was allowed, teachers didn't "teach nonsense," life was a bellyful of 'shakara' and 'zombies' did not darken its doors. Lesser mortals trembled at the tales that wafted out of The Shrine, transported by the strong fumes of 'Igbo.' They trembled but not without a whiff of envy often cloaked in the guise of moral superiority. "Nsa mi-O (God forbid)! how can I go to such a place?"
Well, if Mohammed won't go to the mountain, the mountain will go to Mohammed, as the saying goes. And so it was that 16 years after the passing of the Afrobeat legend and Chief Priest, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, his Shrine came to me on Tuesday in Arizona's Valley of the Sun. I didn't think this would ever happen, given that Arizona is off the beaten path. I was therefore quite delighted when I read that Fela! was not just coming to the Valley of the Sun but would be showing at the Arizona State University Gammage Theater where my middle daughter works as a student stage hand.
I first heard of Fela! in London in 2010 when it was preparing to run at the Royal National Theatre. Regrettably, the opening night was after I returned to the United States. I found out later that it was actually an American show and that it debuted on Broadway in 2009. It's based on a book by Jim Lewis and Bill T. Jones on Fela's life, music and politics. The musical simulates an evening at The Shrine. The theatre audience then becomes The Shrine audience. The Fela character addresses the audience directly, soliciting their participation at various moments during the two-hour show.
Our daughter used her employee pass to purchase two discounted plump VIP tickets for us so we could have a rare midweek date night. On the drive back at the end of a deeply satisfying evening, Megida and I guiltily recalled how we didn't want her to study theatre. I had told her that "people like us don't go to the university to study the arts. We study nursing." Someone once said that nursing has kept Nigerians in the United States out of the poor house. I thought it was therefore my duty to 'encourage' our middle daughter to study nursing (after losing the fight with our oldest daughter). She stared at me through her big beautiful eyes and said firmly: "I'm not doing nursing, Mom." I refused to push.
She graduates next year with a theatre degree in design and production from the Herberger College for the Arts at ASU. When we went to Hollywood last year for a one-week family vacation, her dream of being a designer to the stars got a boost. Since she began her 'theatre journey', she has compelled us to pause every now and then in our hectic schedule to attend shows that she's involved in, often as a stage designer. In the process, we have had fun and a renewed appreciation for the arts especially stage performance, a disappearing genre in the age of movies and quick Do-It-Yourself YouTube productions.
Tuesday night's high point for me was that I finally 'attended' The Shrine, but this time in a more 'sanitised environment'. That is: limited use of the colourful language that the Chief Priest was famous for, just sufficient smoking to make the point as ASU is a non-smoking campus, a fully-clothed Fela except for a brief moment when the shirt came off — and with Adesola Osakalumi's perfectly formed torso (there was no complaint from me about that!). I was able to enjoy the songs, the political commentary and the energetic and high-tempo dancing, probably the best part of the show! Fela's 'Queens' made music with their bodies in what one reviewer described as "pelvic-driven timekeeping." The audience was given a brief lesson. My stiff body managed to do some awkward 6 O'clock and 12 O'clock sequences but the 'around the clock' was a killer!
Two things surprised me about the show. First, the 3,011-capacity Gammage auditorium was full! I clearly underestimated Fela's popularity and presence in the imagination of Arizonans. Fela, obviously, was not just a Nigerian but a global music legend. Indeed, about two years ago, a guy who came to clean our pool, on hearing we were Nigerians, said he was a Fela fan. Fela was the only thing he knew about Nigeria and everything he knew about Nigeria was what he heard from Fela's music. This brings me to the second surprise of the evening: there were as many white folks in the audience as there were black.
Also, while I didn't do a headcount (besides talking to many people before and after the show), it seemed that most of the black folks were African Americans rather than Africans. This should not be surprising though. Fela's anti-military and anti-colonial music and politics would have resonated with Afro politics of the 1960s and 1970s in the United States, especially given his own forage into the American scene in the early 1970s. This might explain why many of the African Americans in the audience were older folks who would have grown up with Fela's music.
As I write this, I recall one of those 'sweet' songs in Nigerian churches: "Jesus na biggie man. Who no know-am call him small boy." Fela, both in life and in death, was larger than life. He was certainly larger than the old Shrine and transcended the African shoreline. He gave the world Afro beat and legitimised the fusion of music and politics, a uniquely Reggae feature — at least the Bob Marley brand.
Fela! the musical which has won three Tony Awards, 11 Tony nominations and numerous other awards and nominations advances the political and musical legacy of Fela, the man. More importantly, the issues that Fela raised throughout his life are as relevant today as they were then. Fela has been deified and reified in the New Shrine in Ikeja and through the work of his son, Femi Anikulapo-Kuti. In that sense, though he dies, the Chief Priest lives on. Unfortunately, so have the Nigerian problems against which he spoke/sang during his lifetime.
Sent from my iPad
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