Fela Kuti: Fear No Man

In a world that’s on fire, what is the role of art? What can music actually…do?

Can a song save a life? Change a law? Topple a president? Get you killed?

In Fela Kuti: Fear No Man, Jad Abumrad—creator of Radiolab, More Perfect, and Dolly Parton's America—tells the story of one of the great political awakenings in music: how a classically trained 'colonial boy' traveled to America, in search of Africa, only to return to Nigeria and transform his sound into a battering ram against the state—creating a new musical language of resistance called Afrobeat.

For years, the world’s biggest stars made pilgrimages to Nigeria to experience Fela’s Shrine, the epicenter of his musical revolution. But when the mix of art and activism got too hot, the state pulled out its guns, and literally opened fire.

Fela Kuti: Fear No Man is an uncategorizable mix of oral history, musicology, deep dive journalism, and cutting edge sound design that takes listeners deep inside Fela’s life, music, and legacy.

Drawing from over 200 interviews with Fela Kuti’s family, friends, as well as scholars, activists, and luminaries like Burna Boy, Paul McCartney, Questlove, Santigold, and former President Barack Obama (just to name a few), Fela Kuti: Fear No Man journeys deep into the soul of Afrobeat to explore the transformative power of art and the role artists can play in this current moment of global unrest.

An Audible Original presented by Audible and Higher Ground. Produced by Western Sound and Talkhouse.

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Episoder(14)

5: Trickster Makes the World

Fela was known almost as much for his hijinx as he was for his music. He took aim at the powers-that-be and, over and over, paid for it in blood. And yet, every provocation served as creative inspirat...

29 Okt 202539min

4: Vengeance of the Vagina Head

Origin story part 2. The “ideological genealogy” of Fela’s revolution actually extends back farther than 1969. Fela’s began twenty years earlier, when he was an 8 year old boy watching his mom make hi...

22 Okt 202554min

3: Enter the Shrine

Fela’s club, The Shrine, was an oasis of freedom amidst a brutal dictatorship. Once inside – and on the dancefloor – the music intoxicated, enraptured and, ultimately, inspired resistance.See Privacy ...

22 Okt 202528min

2: Becoming Fela

Every superhero – and superstar – has an origin story. For Fela, it happened in 1969 Los Angeles, where a potent mix of music and politics turned a “missionary boy” into a Pan-Africanist freedom fight...

15 Okt 202556min

1: To Hell and Back

Fela’s music had the power to move hearts, change minds, and in the case of one man, heal the deepest wounds. Audio clip of Ayo Edebiri courtesy of Sundance Institute. Used by Permission.See Privacy P...

15 Okt 202538min

Introducing Fela Kuti: Fear No Man

Follow Fela Kuti: Fear No Man on Audible or wherever you get your podcasts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-inf...

7 Okt 20251min