Afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo Kuti would have been 78 on Saturday if he had been alive.
The life and time of the iconoclast is however celebrated annually with Felabration, which is a weekly artistic celebration of all he stood for.
Fela was an artiste, politician, activist and maverick rolled into one.
He boldly voiced his opinions on matters that affected the nation through his music.
We take a look at how he lived his life and how he died.
- He was born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti to the first President of the Nigerian Union of Teachers, Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti and human rights activist, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti on October 15, 1938.
- Fela was the cousin of the first African to win Nobel Prize for Literature, Professor Wole Soyinka.
- In 1958, he was sent to London to study medicine but decided to study music instead.
- He married his first wife, Remilekun, in 1960 and had three children with her (Femi, Yeni and Sola).
- After playing with Victor Olaiya and his All Stars band, Fela went to Ghana in 1967 to think up a new musical direction.
- He went to the US with his Nigeria ’70 band in 1969 but came back to Nigeria and renamed the band Afrika ’70. He formed the Kalakuta Republic, a commune for the many people who were connected to his band and declared it independent from Nigeria.
- Fela changed his middle name from Ransome which he called a slave name to Anikulapo which means “He who carries death in his pocket.”
- When he released ‘Zombie’ in 1977, it infuriated the Nigerian military so much that they attacked Kalakuta, severely beat Fela and threw his mother from a window, which killed her.
- To mark the anniversary of the attack on his commune, Fela married 27 wives in 1978. He later divorced all but 12 of his wives.
- Fela was banned from entering Ghana when a riot broke out during his concert while he was performing ‘Zombie’.
- The activist formed his own political party, which he called Movement of the People (MOP).
- The military government of General Muhammadu Buhari jailed him in 1984 on a charge of currency smuggling but he was later released after 20 months in prison by General Ibrahim Babangida.
- On his release, he divorced his remaining 12 wives saying that “marriage brings jealousy and selfishness”.
- Fela died on August 2, 1997 from Kaposi’s sarcoma brought on by AIDS.
- More than a million people attended his funeral at the old Afrika Shrine on Pepple Street, Ikeja, Lagos.
