by Siddharta THE DEMISE in August of two singers, Nigerian Olutela Anikulapo-Kuti aged 58 and Indian Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan aged 48 is a staggering loss to music and beyond.
They were schooled in the classical and finer arts but also innovators in contemporary styles, as much influenced as influential in the crossover between western and non-western melodies.
Fela Kuti had been described as the second funkiest man alive -James Brown denying him the top honour. Hailing from Abeokuta, (north of Lagos) in south western Nigeria, his parents were impor tant influences. His mother was a prominent anti-colonial activist and recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize and his father a churchman, and founder of the first teachers He won a scholarship to study medicine in England but when in London enrolled instead at the Trinity College of Music. He could already play piano but took to the trumpet inspired by Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and others in the United States.
Back in Nigeria he was looking for a sound that fitted and stumbled on the same sort of funky jazzy recipe as the gospel-soul influenced James Brown, which Fela dubbed Afro-Beat. His ability to bridge the gap between the pidgin English speaking masses and the more intellectual and politically conscious was cemented by a visit to the U.S. in 1969.
Here the Latin-Cuban-African and Jazz elements and melodies were finally fused with an empowering message that added to the potency of the music.
This reflected his exposure to radical groups and ideas such as the Black Panther Party and works such as Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.
From his 1969 Los Angeles sessions album, an ou-take "Viva Nigeria" has the following lyric:
"War is not the answer/War has never been the answer/and it will never be the answer/one nation indivisible/long live Africa/Viva Nigeria".
His increased politicisation coupled with his growing popularity brought him into conflict with Nigeria's repressive military regimes. Branding the dictators as liars, and denouncing them as unpatriotic contributed to the frequency of beatings, raids and imprisonment.
One of his periods of imprisonment was in the Alagbon Close jail nicknamed the 'Kalakuta' (from an alternative spelling for the dark hole of Calcutta).
On his release he named the compound enclosing his residence and club "The Kalakuta Republic", declaring it independent of state authority and interference.
He also became a campaigner for the healing and meditative powers of marijuana, which he had been introduced to in the U.S. and which he and the other members of his republic liberally and openly consumed. This was to provide the justification for numerous police raids which were thinly disguised opportunities for harassment and intimidation. In one of those raids his mother was thrown from a window and sub• sequently died.
His spell in jail between 1984 and 1986 led to him being adopted by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience.
One brother, Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti, is a leading human rights activist and presently serving a fifteen year prison sentence on trumped up charges imposed by the Sani Abacha dictatorship.
In musical terms, his pioneering of Afro-beat involving a fusion of the Latin and Jazz idioms with African music encompassing both traditional and modern influences was unique and hugely successful.
Afro-beat provided an alternative to the highlife sound that was overrunning north west Africa and the juju and later fuji styles dominating Nigeria.
The spontaneity of compositions - often coming together live and culturally influential entertainers a large band with semi-clad singers and dancers, making his stage shows unmissable.
When he was diagnosed as having AIDS, he continued touring but recording became more sporadic and eventually he died of heart failure brought on by AIDS related complications. True to the name he had given himself (AnikuLapo - he who holds death in his pocket), he stuck firm to his avoidance of western medicines, refusing any to his final days trusting only the spirit world which now preoccupied him more than poliUstad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
tics and even music.
Fela Kuti's demise was followed barely two weeks later by the unexpected and untimely death of Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
Here was an artist at the peak of his creativity accomplishing These passings serve to highlight the immense significance of such social Olufela Anikulapo-Kuti through a highly emotionally charged voice what Indians and Pakistanis had failed to achieve any semblance of - unity! Born into a family of excellent singers, Nusrat ascended to the highest heights and early on was awarded the honorific Ustad (Master).
He took the Qawwali music based on Sufi Muslim spirituality and classical Punjabi verse to the world as Ravi Shankar had brought Indian classical music before him. The intensity and the poetry of his performances extended to bhajans - Hindu songs of religious praise. Qawwali literally means "devotional songs aimed at bringing the individual closer to God".
This corresponds to the Sufi notion of the exile of the soul from its maker, and its longing to return. These songs of praise appealed to all Muslims, while his interpretations of bhajans held Hindus in awe too.
Lyrics such as "The Hindus call you Ram, the Muslims call you Allah, they are speaking of one and the same from Allah Hoo, Allah Hoo stressed his themes of togetherness. The motif of love entwined with that of faith and the Sufi disdain for rules and rituals and their mean minded veneration infuriated fundamentalist Islamic traditions. The ecstasy and abandon Nusrat evoked in his audience would have them dancing joyously even at staid venues like London's Albert Hall where Muslim, Hindu and Sikh flocked to hear him. His music also fared well at the hands of remixers who added Latin, bhangra and hip-hop effects to his tracks in efforts to modernise the sound. He proved the versatility of his sound through collaborations with renowned western musicians like Peter Gabriel and on film scores for Natural Born Killers and Bandit Queen, and translated his talents for the Bollywood (Indian commercial cinema) audience through work on film soundtracks without compromising his integrity. Having wholeheartedly embraced his musical calling, Nusrat had ballooned in weight by his late 30's and fought a losing battle from then on. The resultant pressure on his body, and his prolific and intense emotional performances both live and in the studio must ultimately have contributed to his death of renal failure. He was of an age with the post-colonial Indian sub-continent, a product of its previously combined culture and heritage; striving to reconnect links torn asunder.
These passings serve to highlight the immense significance of such social and culturally influential entertainers who were "Talkin' Loud and Sayin' Something".
while others will grieve that one of result in an independent Socialist Curlook Annual subscription £25 (6 is-