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The title track of Fela Kuti’s Unknown Soldier (1979) was his response to another attack on Kalakuta Republic. Only now, Fela seemed more in a state of mourning than anger. If the five stages of grief were as regimented as in film cliches, ‘Kalakuta Show’ would be anger; ‘Unknown Soldier’ would be depression.
It is possibly the saddest Fela ever sounded on record. Almost 1,000 armed soldiers had raided Fela’s home, destroyed the property, and assaulted the residents. He sings of the soldiers, “Them throw my mama / Them kill my mama”. The soldiers threw Fela’s mother from a second story window. Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was a teacher, women’s rights activisit, and the most influential Nigerian woman of her time. Fela sings, “Political mama / Influential mama / Ideological mama / Them throw my mama / Them kill my mama”.
He doesn’t start singing until 15 minutes in. (Before then, we only hear Fela’s voice count the horns in at 3:15: “One, two, three, four”.) The opening quarter of an hour transitions between more pensive moments and hints at the thundering energy to come. Though Fela’s lyrics may sound more sad than angry, that horn riff sounds more the latter. It returns later to dovetail with Fela’s soloing tenor saxophone.
Despite the subject matter, there’s more of a circular, patient feel to the song than Fela’s urgent works like ‘Zombie’. The tenor guitar riff in the left speaker, with its second phrase ending on a sustained, unresolved note, sounds like it could go all day (and does repeat for most of the 31 minutes).
Tony Allen’s drum patterns are less constantly shifting than in earlier works. Even between 7:26 and 9:14—when Fela’s playing a minimal solo, the other horn players have dropped out, and Allen theoretically has space to let loose—his playing is contained. That’s not to say it’s ever uninteresting: Allen’s syncopation gives the half-hour song forward momentum and his subtle fills help build suspense with Fela’s solo.
Though his Africa 70 band was still in tow, Fela was moving toward his Egypt 80 sound: less funk- and jazz-influenced; more classical-esque in terms of sound, orchestration, and composition length.
After making percussive noises, Fela begins his lyrics at 15:34. He promises to tell us “something”. The backing singers play the role of the public: “Fela, you don come again”; “Where you dey go?”. The distinction between call and response, so often used in Fela’s music, is less clear in this song; some of Fela’s lines are responses: “Don’t ask me / Wait and see”.
From 17:31, when he’s about to start recounting the soldiers’ attack, a new horn part is introduced. The two pairs of chords—the second technically resolving the first, but by no means sounding settled—match the urgency of Fela’s voice. The Nigerian government concluded that “unknown soldiers” were responsible for the attacks. He calls their work “Government magic”. “Them go turn green into white”; “red into blue”; “electric to candle”.
Fela’s replaying the attacks: “I see dey come / Small, small / Look o, look o”, pointing out the soldiers approaching his home. The backing singers repeat the ‘Zombie’-esque marching chant: “Left, right, left, right”.
He references Stevie Wonder and FESTAC, which was a government-led culture and arts celebration. Fela was asked to play and he refused. The government rubbished his name in public; soldiers were beaten by young people close to Kalakuta. One week later, the soldiers attacked.
Fela continues playing commentator: “Where these one thousand soldiers them dey go?” The answer: “Fela house, Kalakuta”. He recounts that his “mama”, “beautiful people”, “Frenchman”, and “press man”, and “one-fifty of us” were there. “And suddenly”, the soldiers were breaking, stealing, looting, raping, burning, cutting out a student’s eye, and breaking heads.
The backing singers later repeat the title as Fela asks, “Which kind injustice is this?” That “unknown soldier” refrain, along with several others from Fela’s discography, was referenced on his 1989 song, ‘O.D.O.O. (Overtake Don Overtake Overtake)’.
The Unknown Soldier album artwork includes newspaper cuttings of reports on the attack. One reads, “Explosion From Generator Caused Fire, Army Major tells Justice Anya”. Justice Anya’s name is in another heading below: “Be as law abiding as you have been in the past — Justice Anya advises Fela”.
But Fela wasn’t in the mood to stop protesting. He references Anya at 24:30, and tells the government, “I get some information for you / That my mama wey you kill / She fought for universal adult suffrage / That my mama wey you kill / She’s the only mother of this country / That my mama wey you kill / She’s the only mother of Nigeria”.
During his trip to the USA, Fela had read Malcolm X’s The Autobiography of Malcolm. Malcolm talked about the importance of speaking up. In his later years, Fela’s music may have taken on different moods, but he never stopped standing up for what he thought was right.
Allen said that after he left the band, Fela’s music was more trance-like (Finding Fela, 2014). Fela wanted more repetition. Though there was plenty of that, there was also plenty of brilliant arrangement, innovation, and new territory explored – and plenty more protest. In the next four parts of this series, we’ll explore Fela’s Egypt 80 era.
Top image from Discogs.