On departure day, at London airport, passengers were being called to board the different flights. When they called, “Pan Am, Pan Am,” a whole lot of people got up When they called our flight, everyone in the airport looked to see who was going to stand up, because they knew that this flight was going to East Berlin, man. Only three of us got up in the whole airport! All eyes were on us. I was so scared. I knew I was going to die. Two hundred people had gotten up for the Pan Am flight. But only three for East Berlin! I swear, I was shaking. On top of that, the plane turned out to be the oldest plane on the airfield. I said to myself: “I’m gonna die today.” When we finally arrived at our destination, you know what I saw? It wasn’t like an airport at all. I saw sheds and these Gestapo-like dressed soldiers with boots. A man came up to me and said:
“Mr Fela Ransome-Kuti?”
“Yes.”
He said: “Follow me.” He was so military.
I said: “Follow you? Where?”
He took me to this big hotel in East Berlin. It was so big, so great. But I was so afraid, it looked to me like the biggest prison. You see what brainwashing does to human beings? Here was this big hotel. Actually, it was a beautiful place; but to me, it was like prison.
We went down a long corridor. “Here’s your room,” he said. It was about 9 o’clock at night. I locked the door. Went and sat on the bed. Then I thought I heard footsteps. I tiptoed to the door. Slowly opened it and looked in the corridor. No one. I went back and sat on the bed. Again I would go. Again I’d come back. Go. Come back. That’s how I spent the whole night. In the morning, I heard them calling for me. I said to myself: “It’s time for trouble-o.” They said to me, “Follow us now. We’re going to start the tour.” I was thinking, “Tour to hell!” Then when I got downstairs I saw many Africans waiting to go on this tour too. Then I felt a bit comfortable. I at last started to cool down, man. Then we all went sightseeing. I had the most beautiful time of my life those ten days I spent there. All the racist thing I experienced as a student in England wasn’t there. Happiness, man. Ten happy days. So I took a different view on that whole shit about communism. But, ten years after, on a second visit to Berlin for the Berlin Jazz Festival in 1978, I would see communism’s real face. But during my first visit I could only see all of those good things. I was thrilled.
Politics! Man, I was so fucking ignorant about world politics then, I didn’t know shit! And I really didn’t give a fuck either! The first time I’d heard about race riots was when I got to London, man. The press was full of that racial shit. NOTTING HILL, AUGUST 1958. STICK-WIELDING POLICE CONTAIN NEGRO RIOTERS! No, man, I wasn’t ready for that!
At that time, I wasn’t even reading newspapers, man. Music. Music is all that interested me! And parties, of course, where I could play, dance, meet people and have fun. I’d just go from party to party. Then. . . . Fuck it! When I saw her, I said: “This is NEWS!” That girl, man, was so fucking beautiful! I said to myself: “Shit, I’ve got to make it with her.” What attracted me to Remi? Her face. It was a beautiful face. What did I feel? I felt to … fuck.
Remi Taylor and Fela at the time of their marriage in London, 1961
7
Remi
The One with the Beautiful Face
She’s tall, slender and graceful, with the poised, self-assured dignity of a woman who has been through a hell of a lot. Remi is Fela’s first wife, the mother of his first three children. Vivacious and eloquent in private, she keeps a distant and low-keyed profile in public.
Remilekun* Taylor was born on 12 July 1941, in Maidenhead (England), during the Second World War when, as she relates, “pregnant mothers were being shipped to the outskirts of London”. Her father was Nigerian, her mother is a blend of Black American (“which also means African,” she proudly affirms), Red Indian and British.
Growing up in England then was not easy, she recalls. “Now I can say it was stinking, but then I didn’t know any different. You know, when I was growing up I always thought I was very ugly ’cause I judged myself against the white girls. I didn’t know any Blacks except my sister and cousins.” Not until she was sixteen did that negative self-image begin to lose its hold. “When I got to sixteen and left for school in Birmingham I saw a lot of Black girls. So I knew I wasn’t as ugly as I thought. There were so many things I had to fight against then, like religion. After I left school I couldn’t be bothered with it.” And it was soon after leaving school that Fela walked into Remi’s life.
Q: When did you meet Fela?
A: I met Fela when I was eighteen, in 1959.
Q: How did you meet him?
A: At a party. I first met him in London at a party and I didn’t like him. He was too rough. [Laughter.]
Q: What were you doing at the time you met him?
A: I was working and training to be a secretary.
Q: I see. And why do you say he was too rough?
A: The way he dressed, you know. No tie. Open shirt. Everything. Like a Teddy Boy, I called him.
Q: Like a ruffian?
A: Yes. [Laughter.] It’s true. Then when I met him six months later he had a suit on and was playing with his band. So he appealed to me then and so OK.
Q: What appealed to you then?
A: [Laughter.] Sex appeal.
Q: Sex appeal! [Laughter.] And what happened afterwards?
A: We started going out together and then we got married. In London. In 1961.
Q: And when was the first child born?
A: The same year. It was Yeni, our oldest daughter. Next came our son, Femi, in June 1962. Then another daughter, Sola, on 24 November 1963. She was born in Lagos.
Q: So you were pregnant once a year?
A: More or less.
Q: Tell me something. How was Fela with you then? At that period? Those were the hard years in London then for him.
A: Those years may have been hard, but not as hard as the years to come. We got along well and Fela was attentive to me.
Q: Were you all living together?
A: No, he lived in his place. I lived in mine.
Q: That’s how you always lived?
A: Yes, ever since we met.
Q: Why is that?
A: Well, in the beginning because he couldn’t practise in my place. And then, I just liked it like that.
Q: So there was never any misunderstanding because of that?
A: No. Although he did say when we came home we’d start to live together, which we did when we came back to Nigeria.
Q: When he returned to Nigeria, you came back with him also?
A: Yes. He came by boat and I came by plane two weeks later, so he arrived the day before me. In ’63.
Q: Then what happened? How was life then?
A: It was OK at first. He started his band, I think, the following year or the same year. I can’t remember. It was OK at first and then I got sick. He went to America and I got worse. When he came back I decided to live in my own place, like before.
Q: Why?
A: Why not?
8
From Highlife Jazz to Afro-Beat
Getting My Shit Together
From England I went back home in 1963 and worked for Nigeria Broadcasting as a producer. It was a terrible job. A stupid job. Unprogressive work. But I got into records and heard African music, the music I love. I had my band called Koola Lobitos. The NBC gig didn’t last. My appointment with them was terminated. I had to resign. Why? Uncountable reasons, man, like: “You’re always coming late to work.” (Yeah, at eleven o’clock instead of eight.) Or: “You’re not recording new bands for new programmes.” (Yeah, true sometimes.) Or: “You insist on playing your music rather than what is programmed!” (Yeah, I wanted to play jazz, man.) My boss wanted jazz too, but straight jazz. I wanted to play highlife jazz, as I called my music at the beginning.
In ’66 I was playing highlife jazz with my Koola Lobitos band. Eventually I dropped that name too. ’Cause my mother had told me: “Start playing music your peopl
e understand, not jazz.” So those were years of experimentation, man. Even with … grass.
How did I get into grass? You may not believe me, man. But it was a girl who started me “smoking” in Nigeria. Her name is Eunice. I’d always see her eyes red and a friend said she “smoked” a bit. So one day I asked her: “Do you smoke?” She said: “Tell me, man; tell me, make him some try some too.” So I tried it. I’d tried it before in London, but you didn’t get it in London so much. I tried it once or twice in London. I liked it when I “smoked” it in London. But my brother professor told me a long time ago that if I “smoked” I would go crazy, so that is why I run away from it. But when this girl gave me the smoke and I had sex with it. . . . Ohhhhhhhhh, it was fantastic! I’d never had sex with it before. That was ’66.
When did I start calling my music Afro-beat? Let me tell you. I was playing highlife jazz when Geraldo Pino came to town in ’66 or a bit earlier with soul. That’s what upset everything, man. He came to town with James Brown’s music, singing, “Hey, hey, I feel all right, ta, ta, ta, ta. . . .” And with such equipment you’ve never seen, man. This man was tearing Lagos to pieces. Woooooooh, man! He had all Nigeria in his pocket. Made me fall right on my ass, man. Ahhhhhh, this Sierra Leonian guy was too much. Geraldo Pino from Sierra Leone. I’ll never forget him. I never heard this kind of music before-o, I’m telling you. Only when I went to Ghana shortly after that did I hear music like that again, soul music. Shit! If you could have seen him, man. And his equipment … something else!
When that guy Pino came to Lagos in ’66, he came in a big way: in a convertible Pontiac; you know, one of those big American cars, man. Flashy, new equipment. Lots of bread. He was doing his thing, man. He had everything I didn’t have. He did a three-day show in Lagos. Then he went up country to the North for a month, then came back to Lagos again for five days. After that, he was to go back to Ghana. What worried me was that he was going to come back again to Nigeria. I’d seen the impact this motherfucker had in Lagos. He had everyone in his pocket! That was my mind, you know. I wanted to split town, leave, disappear. Go far away. To America. Find my own way, in any case. Make it myself. ’Cause I saw I couldn’t make it with this man around, even in Nigeria. In ’67 he came back to Nigeria for a tour, then split back to Ghana. Ouuuuf!
After that motherfucking Pino tore up the scene, there wasn’t shit I could do in Lagos. So I went to Ghana in ’67 with Zill Oniya, a trumpeter from Nigeria, to look for work, because at that time I didn’t have funds in Nigeria. I was even giving up the music-o! I swear, man! I was so fucking discouraged. Then Zill came to me and said, “Let’s try and find work in Ghana.” At that time that’s where the action and the bread was. So we went to Ghana. And one day in Accra we entered this club, Ringway Hotel. The place was packed, man! Geraldo Pino was playing there. Ohhhhh, come and hear this music-o! See this guy’s equipment! I’d never seen such equipment before. In Lagos, I was using this old equipment … museum antiques, man. I had only one microphone for the whole band. One microphone! This motherfucking Pino had six! The whole place was jumping. The music carried me away completely. To me, it was really swinging music. I say, “Look the drummer, how he play drums!” Ohhhhh, I say, “Whaaaaat? This is heavy-o!” I was saying to myself, “I need equipment like this, man!” Oooooooo, I was enjoying the music! Can you understand my situation at that club that night? Needing to find a job myself, but enjoying the music so much that I even forgot I myself was a fucking musician. I was there digging the music, thinking about all that. Finally, I did get my own job at a club in Ghana. I stayed there for a year. That was in ’67. After seeing this Pino, I knew I had to get my shit together. And quick!
I went back to Nigeria, but soon after returned to Ghana in ’68. One day I was with a friend sitting down in a club in Accra, listening to soul music. Everybody was playing soul, man, trying to copy Pino. I said to myself: “This James Brown music. . . . This is what’s gonna happen in Nigeria soon-o.” I saw it so clearly. That’s why I said to myself, “I have to be very original and clear myself from shit.” I was still hustling. Hustling to make bread. “I must clear myself from this mess. I must identify myself with Africa. Then I will have an identity.” That’s what I was thinking to myself. Raymond Aziz, a Nigerian-Ghanaian who was sitting next to me, looked at me kind of pensively.
“You OK, man?” he asked.
I said: “Raymond, you see that my music. I must give it a name-o, a real African name that is catchy. I’ve been looking for names to give it. And I’ve been thinking of calling it Afro-beat.”
He said: “Yehhhhhh! That’s a good name.”
I said: “Thank you.”
So when I got back to Lagos, I called the press, gave them money, and told them I was changing to Afro-beat. I had to “dash” the press, bribe them, have a press conference. All that shit. Then I started a club: Afro-Spot. It gave me some of the prestige I needed. Even if Geraldo Pino came – I was thinking – I had Afro-Spot. But then he arrived and started to take Lagos! Ohhh, waooooooooh!
All the while, terrible things were happening in Nigeria. Atrocious things, man. The Biafran war had started in ’66 and was now fully underway. I was in Lagos, playing music. I didn’t like the Biafran war though. I thought the Nigerian government was wrong. I thought the Biafrans were right. The Yoruba are not Ibo. I thought the Ibos were right. I said to myself, “This whole thing is a cheap, big hustle to put the Ibos in a bad light in the world.” And, in fact, what was happening was the beginning of corruption in Nigeria. That’s evident now.
The Biafrans were fucking right to secede, man. If it was secession, it was good secession. Because secession is what could have brought Africa together at that time. From secession we could come together again. But by not seceding, we’re put together by force. Uhuhhhhhh! That’s what’s happening in Nigeria today. The Ibos don’t understand why they’re in Nigeria. The Yorubas don’t know what’s happening. And the Hausas, they want to dominate everybody. The whole thing is fucking confusion. I don’t even know myself why we’re in Nigeria; how we all got to be together in this country, in the first place. No politician has ever gone into that. If Ojukwu* had seceded, we would have started our own history. We would have known why we seceded and what happened. How did we get together in the first place? Uh? That’s the real question. Why don’t any of the politicians ever ask that question? Eh? Anyway, at that time, when the war was going on, I wasn’t politically minded at all. I made my comments as a citizen. I was just another musician, playing with Koola Lobitos and singing love songs, songs about rain, about people. . . . What did I know? That’s when I split to America.
The idea to split to America came suddenly. One day I was in this club when this guy came and told me he wanted to take me to America. He said he would give me tickets and everything. So we started to plan America. We went and got our passports, then went to get visas. We had already told the press we were leaving that same Friday. So when I went to the American Embassy for visa, they said, “Where are your tickets?” So I went and asked this guy for the tickets. He started to scratch his head and talk shit, saying that they were with his brother, and that we’d reimburse him when we got back from America. The motherfucker didn’t even have bread to buy the tickets. So I went with him to see his brother. Of course, he had no tickets either. Anyway, this guy told his brother we would refund the money to him when we got back, that we would work, do African music, make shows, and send him back the money. You know, he was trying to convince him. Finally, his brother said, “OK,” and he went to the bank to borrow the money. So he didn’t have money either.
Anyway, I went to America and when I did come back, I only had $10 in my pocket. I was completely broke, man. I didn’t even dare go to see the man at all. I was saying to myself, “I can’t see you-o. ’Cause your brother fucked me up in America.” You see, man, this guy had advanced us £2,400 sterling for the tickets of the whole band. We’d left on three-month excursion tickets. Imagine that, three
months! And, man, we stayed there ten months instead. When I got really popular in Lagos though I paid this man back from what I got off the records released. That’s how I paid my debts.
All the while I’d kept in touch with J.K. who’d been living in London, Paris, then in London again. I used to wonder, “How is that motherfucker doing?” We’d keep in touch, but irregularly, off and on. I was convinced that together we could pull off whatever motherfucking shit we wanted. “If I make it in America,” I was thinking to myself, “then we could get together and really do our thing!” Finish.
9
Lost and Found in the Jungle of Skyscrapers
New York! New York! Buildings going up, up, up, high like that! Pata-pata-pata-pata! Skyscrapers! Ooooooooh! Today I’d say: “Go up that high? To scrape what? Jo, make ’em scrape dirty streets fo’ Harlem an’ Mushin-o!* Make ’em scrape ’way poverty from this, the land we’re standing on-o! …” But at that time, man, I was taken back. I said to myself: “Fuck! Look those motherfucking tall buildings! Africans ain’t shit! Just savages, man! When did Black man ever build things great like that-o?” Oh, I was so impressed by America! So blind, man! No, my life in England hadn’t prepared me for America-o. That place was so big, man! Shiiiiiit! And we really had a chance to see America ’cause we didn’t have bread to fly to Los Angeles. So my whole group, seven musicians, myself and one girl dancer, set out to L.A. by road. Woooooowh! Who would believe me back home? “Great” Britain? Little Britain beside America!
Fela Page 7