In the six years between ‘International Thief Thief’ and ‘Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense’ (1986), Fela Kuti was developing his compositional techniques. Most obviously, songs were getting longer: ‘Army Arrangement’ and ‘Government Chicken Boy’ were half an hour each. Fela was fond of Western classical greats, and started calling his music African classical music, rather than Afrobeat. Asked by Peter Culshaw who his favourite musicians was, Fela said:

“Handel. Western music is Bach, Handel and Schubert. It’s good music, cleverly done. As a musician, I can see that. Classical music gives musicians a kick. But African music gives everyone a kick.”

On certain earlier songs, such as ‘Viva Nigeria’ (1969) and ‘Fear Not For Man’ (1977), Fela had talked, rather than sung, his political or social commentary. In the verses of ‘Teacher’, he sings with an emphasis on lyrical content over melody. But Fela being Fela, he finds nooks and crannies in the music and surprising rhythmic emphasis where other vocalists would merely sound like they’re reading prose.

Fela was increasingly concerned with the West’s influence on Africa. As David Corio writes:

“Fela had begun reading esoteric literature promoting the belief that African history had been distorted and misrepresented by Western academics, and his interpretation of these ideas and transformation of them into musical themes became his main concern. Reflecting this embrace of pan-African revisionism, he now called his group Egypt 80.”

(The above clip is from a concert film of Fela’s 1984 Glastonbury set. For the 1986 studio recording, Fela rearranged the song so the climactic moments have even more impact. And thankfully, the backing singers are high in the mix, and their parts are of equal importance to his ‘lead’ vocals.

The interview was sampled in Just A Band and Childish Gambino’s cover of ‘Who Know Go Know’ for the Red Hot + Fela compilation in 2013.)

The “Teacher”s Fela refers to are Western colonialists in Africa. Fela says when the student (Africa) makes a mistake, the teacher must tell them so. Democracy isn’t working; things are only getting worse: “Rich man dey mess; Poor man dey cry”.

The song opens with just drums and percussion. After half a minute, there’s the bassline, which will play through the vast majority of the near-26 minutes. And two rhythm guitars; in contrast to much of Fela’s music, there’s not one tenor guitar playing a picked one-note melody. The rhythm guitars, with subtle reverb and more sustain than usual, give the song more of a floaty feeling than anything he’d released. Then Fela’s keyboard joins in. The first chorus with bombastic, dissonant horns arrives after two and a half minutes. Those horns are used to even greater effect much later in the song.

After the second chorus, Fela’s keyboard leads a brief interlude before the first saxophone solo, courtesy of tenor player Oyinade Adeniran. Then Lekan Animahaun, or Baba Ani, plays a baritone sax solo. He introduces new melodies and a different mood: from 6:46, Ani’s yearning, bluesier phrases are the clearest sign yet that this will be a very different song from the bullish ’70s Fela: ‘Gentleman’, ‘Zombie’, et al.

Soon, the rest of the horn players, including the huge sound from Baba Ani’s baritone, play a call-and-response with Fela’s tenor. Then Fela tells his singers, “All you have to do is sing what I play on my horn” and plays a beautiful set of melodies which the singers mimic with “La la la”s. There’s hopefulness, as well as sadness, in each of Fela’s phrases.

After the horn-and-vocal section, there’s only percussion and bass. The song has been reduced to its bare essentials. And then Fela brings it back up again, starting his main lyric.

In the bridges (such as from 16:30), the guitars make rare deviations from their main parts. The guitar in the right speaker plays two tense, unresolved chords. After the final “Yes, ma’am” from the backing singers, the guitars revert to their main parts, providing a release. There’s another bridge section with the “Which one?” responses.

From 15:58, the horn players play a jubilant, cathartic riff. The moment is made possible by what’s been built before it: the bassline playing for 16 minutes, the melodic development in the solos, the vocal melodies never seeming to quite resolve, the urgency in the Fela’s and his singers’ voices. In the vocal call-and-response that follows, with the backing singers repeating “Baba nla nonsense”, the horn riff is reduced so that the last note is not sustained. Its curt finish contrasts with the bassline, with its first three notes long and patient.

There’s rare footage of Fela in the studio, finetuning the backing singers’ pronunciation of “Democracy” (1:39 onwards). The video also shows another iteration of the “La la la” horn-and-vocal parts.

When Fela reaches that “Democracy” part, the horns come in heavy on the first beat. As discussed in our Further Explorations of Funk series, this section and others made heavy use of the One:

[...] when Fela used the heaviest emphasis, he placed it on the One. Listen from 24:35, and for that crucial first beat on “Me and you no dey for the same u-category.” Those horns hit with the same emphasis and intensity as any of James Brown’s funk.

On Brown classics like ‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag’ and ‘Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine’, the chord progressions and melodies are familiar after two or three bars, and each time the One comes back it’s foreseeable. It feels good, but it’s not unexpected.

Whereas during moments like those on ‘Teacher’, as well as providing a sense of euphoria, the One brings relief. The preceding cobweb of horns [from 24:15] is gripping, but also dizzying. The One and the returning chorus let you know where you are again.

As discussed in part 4, following percussion-led breaks in ‘O.D.O.O.’ (1989) and ‘Teacher’, Fela reintroduces melody with blasts of horns. In the break in ‘O.D.O.O.’ from 27:50, all the instruments aside from percussion drop out and don’t return until 28:59. The listener has had almost half an hour of harmony and melodic development, and suddenly there’s only rhythm. Even the bass, which has played a simple nine-note figure pretty much throughout, disappears. The contrast between melody and a pure focus on rhythm makes the horn riff even more exhilarating when it returns on the One.

Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense, a two-track album (expanded to three tracks on rereleases), was produced by Wally Badarou. It wasn’t often that Fela worked with another producer, but the album sounds absolutely fantastic – particularly the horns. Credit must also go to engineers Joelle Bauer and Serge Devevres, and Hervé Marignac, who engineered, mixed, and mastered the album. Badarou spoke about his experiencing producing Fela (“How can you produce Fela? Nobody can produce Fela. He is larger than life, OK?”) in a 2006 interview.

In ‘Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense’, Fela merged structural and orchestral elements from Western classical music; improvisation, melodic freedom, and horn arrangements inspired by jazz; polyrhythms from African music; an appreciation of the One (likely inspired by James Brown, though Fela would never admit it); and his own idiosyncratic humour and sociopolitical commentary. The result was arguably his magnum opus: a dazzling, groovy, unforgettable 25-minute masterpiece.

Top image from Fela’s Glastonbury set, provided by The Archive Factory.