Fela Kuti
Fela Aníkúlápó Kutì was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist and political firebrand who fused highlife, jazz and American funk into Afrobeat, using extended, horn-driven grooves as a vehicle for blunt anti-government critique. His Kalakuta Republic commune and confrontations with Nigeria's military government made him as much a political lightning rod as a musician, and his catalog — dozens of albums cut with Africa '70 and Egypt 80 — remains the reference point for Afrobeat worldwide.
James Brown's stripped-down, percussive funk — vamping horns locked to a syncopated 'one' — was, by Fela's own account and multiple biographers, a formative jolt that pushed his Koola Lobitos sound away from straight highlife-jazz and toward the tighter, groove-first arrangements that became Afrobeat.
listen forPlay James Brown's 'Cold Sweat,' where the horns stop chasing melody and start chasing rhythm, then Fela's 'Shakara' — the same hard-locked, horn-punctuated groove, stretched out and Africanized.
Ghana's E.T. Mensah led The Tempos, the dance band that made highlife the dominant popular sound across West Africa in the 1950s; Fela started out playing squarely within that highlife tradition before layering jazz and funk on top of it.
listen forHear Mensah's brassy, ballroom-ready 'Ghana Freedom,' then Fela's own Koola Lobitos-era 'It's Highlife Time' — same horn-led dance-band highlife foundation, before Fela pushed it anywhere else.
Sierra Leonean bandleader Geraldo Pino brought a James-Brown-style funk-and-soul stage show to Lagos with his band the Heartbeats; Fela later recalled that Pino "was tearing Lagos to pieces," describing him as the jolt that upset his highlife-jazz apple cart and pushed him toward a funkier, harder-hitting hybrid.
listen forPlay Geraldo Pino's driving 'Heavy Heavy Heavy' — all clipped funk guitar and insistent horns — then Fela's 'Water No Get Enemy,' where that same funk backbone gets stretched into extended Afrobeat form.