For some twenty years, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the Nigerian bandleader and creator of the Afro-beat sound, has hurled barbs at the politicians of his country and of other nations as well. His lifestyle is as outrageous as his politics are radical: Fela married twenty-seven women at once in a traditional ceremony and openly advocates the use of marijuana. After serving eighteen months in Nigerian prisons on trumped-up currency-smuggling charges, he was freed in 1986 and has since released two albums, Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense and the current Beasts of No Nation.

Fela never performs any song he has already included on an album, and this isn't the only pop convention he ignores. His compositions are like groove concertos, ebbing and flowing for as long as an hour in concert. "Just Like That," the A side of Beasts, clocks in at just under twenty-three minutes. It is classic Fela. His organic funk starts calmly, as layered percussion, electric piano and rhythm guitars join in a hypnotic medium tempo. The ten-piece horn section makes it all blast off, with the brass gleaming in waves of densely clustered, repetitive charts. Fela calls out the words in broken or pidgin English, and the chorus responds. He raps a scathing indictment of deceit and cultural sellout by Nigerian leaders, culminating with a call for Africans to create solutions to end the suffering.

Although he enters no new territory with Beasts, Fela continues to follow his vision without compromise. His work is not easily accessible, nor is it meant to be, but with patience and openness to the essential African nature of the sound, the rewards are plentiful. (RS 578)

TOM CHEYNEY