‘Kalakuta Show’ (1976) tells the story of the Nigerian police’s 1974 invasion of Fela’s commune, Kalakuta, which he had declared a republic. Fela recalls the permits the soldiers were given, the weapons they took (tear gas, baton, and bullet), and the beatings inflicted on him and his fellow Kalakuta residents (“Look blood him dey flow”).

As recounted by Fela’s friend and early manager, Mabinuori Kayode Idowu, police had already raided Kalakuta once earlier that year. They lacked sufficient evidence of “possession of dangerous drugs” or abduction of “minors” to convict him. (The girls at Kalakuta denied they were underage or abducted, and said they went there of their own accord.) The police’s second raid resulted in “scalp wounds, and a broken arm” for Fela. Chris May has written that the police’s “surprise assault on Kalakuta” started with them breaking down the compound’s fence, then “throwing teargas canisters into its buildings”. Fela was beaten and spent the next three days in hospital, guarded by police.

This beating – and the many others inflicted on Fela – might have stopped an ordinary person from protesting against corruption and injustice. But Fela was no ordinary person. Kalakuta, in the first place, was a reference to a prison cell of the Alagbon Close jail, named Calcutta, which he’d inhabited. ‘Alagbon Close’ was another song title. The more injustices Fela faced, the more political his music became.

The song opens with a saxophone solo, before you hear Fela counting towards a brief saxophone riff which in turn introduces more of the band: bass, rhythm guitar, tenor guitar, Tony Allen’s drums. By this time Allen had made the hi-hat a major part of his sound. He told the Wire in a 2016 interview that Nigerian drummers weren’t using their hi-hats.

“I felt that this thing should be like riding a bicycle – you have good legs, you have pedals, you need to put [your feet] on both pedals to make you move. You can’t start riding a bicycle with one leg, when you have two legs, and the other pedal is there.”

Allen was credited as bandleader, as well as drummer. In 2015, he performed the song for Felabration, an annual celebration of Fela’s music. Watch from 2:40 to 3:20 to see just how much syncopation Allen’s adding with hi-hat and snare.

After sixteen bars of the fuller band, there’s the first big blast from the horn section. From there, Fela dovetails with their staccato two-note stabs. He solos on tenor sax based off the main riff, and varies the melody with vibrato (as at 3:55) and unexpected sustain (4:18).

Later Fela’s lyrics are punctuated by three chords from the horns (“Dem give him permit to carry baton / Dem give him permit to carry tear gas”, 7:38), with the sustain of the first chord contrasting with the punchier phrase we heard in the intro. The tension is ramping up.

From 9:09, Fela sings the main vocal hook: “Dem-o hire / Axe-o / Dem bu-ring / Cutlass”. He had an excellent ear for vowel sounds, rhythm-focused melodies, and inflection. It’s not an obvious earworm in the manner of a radio pop song’s chorus, but it’s one of dozens of vocal parts in Fela’s discography that can lodge in your head.

After he repeats those lines, the backing singers adopt it as a chorus for the next two-plus minutes. Fela used choruses more freely than a typical Western pop song with a verse-chorus structure.

The song ends with bass, a simple pattern on maracas (courtesy of Isaac Olaleye), and Fela soloing for a final few bars. This was a technique Fela was fond of: after he’d built a composition to its climax, with an almost ungraspable number of polyrhythms, he would reduce it to its bare bones. And those bare bones were funky.

Top image from Bandcamp.