I was in the midst of all this, man. I couldn’t sleep. I was going through the same ritual myself. Those ten days were fantastic. We would sleep for something like one hour a day, at the most three hours a day. When I would wake up I’d never feel tired. What did the spirit say? It said that the dead people of Africa weren’t being taken care of. And that I was supposed to start teaching others to care for their dead. It said that there is no Africa left. That only Kalakuta was Africa. Many things, man. Many. Me, I was jus’ watching these things going on. Then came Thursday.
It had all started on Tuesday of the week before. Now it’s Thursday morning, second week, tenth day. Femi came and knocked on my window.
“Fela, they’re comin’ today.”
“Come, come! How do you come and tell me that in morning? Who tell you? How you get this information?”
I was in bed in my room with Adejonwo, one of my queens. Then something started happening. I want to try to remember it. . . . Yes, I was with Adejonwo. I was fucking her-o. My prick was still hard in her cunt-o. Suddenly, she said she won’t have nothing to do with me.
“Hey, Fela,” she said. “Mama is here. Look! Mama! Fela, see Mama!”
I began wondering. “Where is she? Show me. Show me.”
“There!”
I looked. I started to feel my head swirl. You know the feeling? It goes swirling. Brrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhh. . . .!
Adejonwo pushed me away and said: “Mama say I shouldn’t have anything to do with you at this moment.”
Shaaaaaaaaah! Then suddenly she started to speak to me like my mother.
“So you want to travel, eh? … You want to travel tomorrow. . . . Where you go? … We are not going anywhere! … You want to get yourself killed? …”
Then, just like that, she said: “Abiola, get out of this room!”
I didn’t see who she was talking to. (I didn’t want to tell you these ones before. I am telling you this one because the spirit has said I can tell you. I have to tell you.) She said:
“Abiola is there.”
Oh, the speed when this woman got up to go to the door. I was so scared. I had to hold her ’cause I had read in books that you have to hold people when they’re in trances. I was trying to hold this woman down. I could not. Her strength was too much, man. Then she said:
“Leave me! Leave me, Fela! I know what I am doing, now leave me!”
It was the voice of my mother. I let go of her.
Then she started to kick the door, like in voodoo rituals, man. The spirit took her over. She became as strong as ten men-o. And she gave my door one of the baddest kicks anybody can give a door. I was thinking: “How can a woman kick a door like this?” She went on kicking and saying all the while:
“Abiola, get out of here! Obasanjo out! Open the door! Slap them out!” Blrrrrrrrhhhhhhh! …
Adejonwo went running outta my room-o. She didn’t even care about her nakedness. All her nyash was showing. But she went anyway all through the house like that, calling the other queens. At this point I went berserk.
It was me now running ’bout the house. I couldn’t follow Adejonwo any more. I got confused. Then, suddenly, I felt something enter my body. Ohhhhhhhhh, my brother! I didn’t know what I was doing-o. I lost control of myself. Oh, wow. I was moving all over the house, man. Up, down. Then I saw my mother. I saw Femi. Femi was really the one who was trying to cool me down. But I could not do what he told me ’cause I couldn’t remember his role. Everybody saw what I was doing, but I couldn’t remember Femi’s role in the whole thing. I saw his face everywhere. I saw his face popping at me, you know. Then I did my ritual. It went on for about two hours. Yeah, man. The spirit was in my body for about two hours.
That ritual took me to Egypt, to Ife. I saw Egypt-o. I saw Ife. Egypt, Ife. They’re telling me that that’s where man started. That’s where humanity started.* And the spirit took me forward and it took me back. Ooooooh, it was like a film. It took me back to what I was. What I am. What I’m gonna do in this world. What I’m supposed to be doing. How we have to do it. It went on and on and on and on and on. Everybody in the house thought I was mad. They couldn’t understand that it was a trance. During the ritual I was told that there was danger for me in Europe. . . . There was death for me in Europe. . . . I saw everything. . . . After the ritual, man, I was so weak. . . . I wasn’t even able to fuck that first day after the ritual. . . . I was like a baby, man … a child!
I believe in spirits now, man! I’ve seen them enter my wives, my son Femi, my close friends … and me! Spirits descended on us, man. It really happened and we saw it. I didn’t believe these things till I saw. All along I’ve been hearing ’bout this and I’ve wanted to see. I’ve seen now. I’ve been part of it. So nobody can come and jive me any more that these things don’t exist. I can categorically say spirits do exist! Don’t nobody jive with this boy again-o! I’ve seen these “people” sitting with me for two days! I was completely in shock.
What is this world really about? We people, we just walk over this world and we don’t know shit. We don’t know shit-o. It really baffles me-o; really baffles me! How did it all start? The whole thing seems to have been falling into place for the last ten years. What really baffles me are the many “coincidences” in the whole thing: J.K.’s uncle coming to my house; how I met Lamiley in Ghana; how Sandra showed me the road to play; how during this whole period I went through experiences of complete changes in my life. . . . This J.K.’s uncle – J.K., my friend since childhood – was the first one who really told me many, many things. Just three days before the ritual, he started to bring out some salient facts that make it so difficult for me to live in this world. Facts that revealed if I had done things as today’s human beings normally would do them, I would have failed the rest.
Anyway, J.K.’s uncle knew what he had to do to me at a particular time. You see, he called me about six years ago and said:
“Fela, you’ve got to put something in your head, you know.” So he said he’d do something for my head. I asked:
“What is it?”
“It’s good for you. If you believe in African liberation you must do it.”
I started thinking, “If you believe, you have to do it! …” Then he started talking to me:
“Fela, if you do it, witches will want to see you, but will not. They will not touch you.”
I didn’t want this kind of juju. I said: “I want juju to disappear, to hold fire.”
But he didn’t want me to have that power. He said: “Look, before you get those ones you have to start somewhere. Try this one. Anyway, Fela, you have to trust me. Let me give you something that’s good for you.”
Fela with white spiritual powder around his eyes
Photo: André Bernabé
“OK,” I said. “Give me.”
J.K.’s uncle made incisions in the centre of my head. Some time went by. Then, one day, a man from Ghana, a so-called magician, came to see me. He brought me a letter from a friend of mine in Ghana. This man wanted to perform at Shrine. In the letter I was told this man had the power to “kill and wake”. I said to myself, half-believing it, “If this guy can do that I’ll announce it to the whole world!” So we put him up in our house. And that night he performed at Shrine. Three shows. Oh, man! What he did was fantastic! It was incredible!!! I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t seen that shit with my own eyes. “Kill and wake!” Bringing a dead man back to life!!
He’s the man who started showing me the way to truth, to myself, to my mission and to … my mother! He told me I was a twice-born; that I’d rejected the white man’s name and died. He told me a lot, a lot of things. He revealed to me that one has to put this white spiritual powder on the face to communicate with spirits. He spoke of the three stars forming a triangle last year, in 1980. You see, that star formation only happens once every two thousand years. We’d seen it too, that same star triangle, the year before. You know what it meant? That the Age of Good was at hand; that the times of Evi
l were about to end. I also found that Africa was the centre of the world, the place from where Good would spring up to embrace the rest of mankind. Just as the first men came about in Africa, man, and went to settle all the other lands. Oh, that man taught me so many things. At last I’d found a real Teacher!
My spiritual instructor lives in Ghana. But I’m in constant spiritual communication with him, no matter where I am in the world. He tells me what to do, what not to do, who my friends are and who are my enemies. He occupies a part of my house. And speaks to me through one of my wives, Sewaa, who’s also from Ghana. And the fantastic thing is something I only found out recently: that Sewaa’s grandmother, a woman called Akosia Ade, was my mother’s good friend. I swear. She’s been to China and Russia with my mother. I didn’t believe Sewaa when she first came to tell me that. Then she showed me a photo: her grandmother along with my mother, together in China! The woman is still alive-o! And it’s Sewaa my mother enters to talk to me! Do you see that, man?? It’s like it was all planned for all of us to meet.
When I want to speak to my spiritual instructor, I call him. When I call him, he gives me a name to call him. Then I wait. Then he enters Sewaa and she starts shaking in convulsions. It’s he who then puts me in touch with my mother. So my Teacher calls my mother. When she comes, the one’s she entered falls into convulsions and then gets quiet. Oh, man! That first conversation with my mother!
My first conversation with my mother since her death. She calls me “Fela”. I jus’ call her “Mummy”. She said to me:
“Fela, you’re travelling tomorrow, eh? You’re not going anywhere. You’re not travelling anywhere.* JUST STAY!!! Want to get yourself killed? …”
That was the first thing she told me. Then other things you might misunderstand which I won’t say.
“Mummy, you have to go. Go ’way.”
She insisted. “Do you have to go get yourself killed?”
That was the sort of argument for the first five minutes and it went on for two hours, man. My Teacher was holding on to the queen; he was accompanying the queen, to direct her. My mother told me how she was. She said that when she died she went for treatment for two years. And that that was why she’d been delayed till now. And then she told me she had died from poisoning! Yes, poisoning! She told me everything. So I know now.
Fela preaching Blackism and PanAfrikanism: “The struggle must stop!”
Photo: Chico
23
This Motherfucking Life
Who am I? I know it now. It was revealed to me in a trance. The spirit told me who I was. And what I am about. But that one I will not say to anybody. Never! Maybe a time will come when I will have to reveal it. Maybe. But all I can say now is: I know exactly who I am and what I am here to do. When it comes to forces that aren’t human forces, you must be careful. These things must manifest themselves in their own time. What has happened to me will make me reveal a lot of bad things going on in this world. But I cannot say it yet. I’ve got a lot of facts in my head. But they are not enough for me to say anything yet. I still need some time to put my thoughts together. OK?
What am I pursuing in this life? Greatness! That’s what I’m after, man. I want to be a great man. Great Man! I want to stand on an equal footing with the other races. ’Cause when you’re walking on the road with other races you are not branded. That is greatness. I want to achieve that individually, first. The other races must come to recognize me as an equal partner. That’s my own philosophy I’m saying. And if other Africans have this same approach and want to be great, well, that’s fine. To have a great nation, you need great men. And to be a great man you need a great nation. You just can’t be a great man by yourself, man. You have to have a great nation first That’s why I say Africa – not Nigeria, Togo or Senegal – must become a great nation for all of the peoples that live there!
But in this corrupt world of ours, “greatness” is seen as the ability to … destroy! The more you fuck up nature to build highways and airports; the more wars you make; the more shit you invent to make life more miserable for the four billion of us, the more you’re said to be great! Look America! Look Russia! England! France! Japan! China! What they call ’em? Na Great Powers-o! Rich motherfuckers are great. Government leaders dey be great. Generals dey be great. . . . All of the massacrists of the world, the killers, man, those na be great people! But the little motherfucking musician, the artist, who is trying to bring some colour, hope and happiness into this world, what is he? Now dem go say he dey craze, man! Yeah, they’ll say he’s crazy! No be so? “He dey craze!” dem say. He-he! So the one wey dey create na crazy one. But the one wey dey destroy, na him be great! Now what kind of a criminal shit logic is that? Please, I beg, explain dat one fo’ me-o!
So when people say America, Russia, China are great powers, I say: “No!” They’re not. They are destructive, not great powers. The man they called “Alexander the Great” was not great; he was a destroyer. Oppressors, destroyers, massacrists can never be great people. Oh, people are so brainwashed, man! Creativity, not destruction, should be the yardstick of greatness. If you cannot create anything that will make your own life, or that of your fellow human, happier, then get out of the way. Split! Disappear! And give others a chance. That’s my advice to these so-called great people and great powers!
I’ve known for a long time, since I was a child in school, that I would be great. I started to realize this after I had found myself always in trouble. I kept asking myself: “Why am I in this trouble? Why am I so uncompromising? Why am I so demagoguing?” And I knew there must be a reason. ’Cause it’s not natural for me to keep on, keep on, when everybody keeps telling me I can’t do it, that I should stop. Nobody’s ever told me: “Fela, it’s good for you to be like you are.” It’s always: “Fela, why don’t you cool down, cool down? What you’re doing there, that’s not done.” Everybody around me said: “Be careful. One day you’re gonna get yourself killed.” So I saw a clear mission. I wouldn’t say mission; that’s not the right word. Let’s say class struggle. That’s the term.
I arrived at that conclusion one day when I asked myself: “Why do they call me stubborn? Why do they always attach a negative name to me when I really know that I am honest?” So I started to search myself. Then I found out that there was a child born in my family before who died. That one was me. So I came twice, man. I asked my spiritual teachers and he says it’s true. Otherwise, how do I explain my uncompromising stand? You see, I had come purposely to give a message. That’s why I split when the white man gave me name. And that’s why I was born the second time. So I don’t like people giving me names, man! Like “radical”, “agitator”, “hooligan”, or shit like that! My name is Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Black President or Chief Priest of Shrine, if you want. But no other names, I beg!
Do I want to leave an imprint on the world? No. Not at all. You know what I want? I want the world to change. I don’t want to be remembered. I just want to do my part and leave. If remembering is part of the world’s thing, that’s their problem. I’ll do my part. I have to do my part. And everybody has to do his. Not for what they’re going to remember you for, but for what you believe in as a man. That’s what everybody should be about. If you want to do things because you want to be remembered, you are doing it for personal reasons only. Just do things ’cause you believe in them. A human being should be like that.
A human being should appreciate power. A human being should have knowledge. Power corrupts? I don’t want to say power corrupts. It’s when a man is powerful and unknowledgeable that he misuses power. But if he is knowledgeable he can never misuse power. It’s impossible. What is power? Control of your mind, man! Control your mind, don’t let your mind control you. Then you have power. Power is not government, you see. It’s a question of mind.
Is there anything I regret in life? Something I would have done another way if I had the chance to do it again? No. Everything I did wrongly was for experience. That’s how I see it. Once a man is lo
oking for a better knowledge and he tries to be honest and truthful in all his endeavours, then his life is just an experience. It cannot be a regret. But the one thing I do not forgive: leaders who exploit! I can forgive a man who steals, a man who lies. . . . But I cannot forgive a leader who is corrupt. A man who kills? Well, it depends on what he did, of course. To kill is a different matter. I can forgive killing too. It depends on the circumstances. But not wanton killing. Not that one. Self-defence I can understand. But in principle I don’t agree with killing.
I’d just like to see happiness in people. That’s all. I hate to see brutality. I hate to compromise with wrongdoing. Whether you’re Black or White, what is bad is bad. A Black man must know what is bad. There’s no favouritism in this thing, you know. There are rights. There are wrongs. So what I believe in is: what is bad is bad, and what is good is good. The only thing I hate is injustice? I cannot stand that one. I cannot favour someone ’cause he’s Black. If I do this, I’m starting the struggle in life on a wrong footing. What is right is right. What is wrong is wrong. That applies to everybody.
Fela singing
Photo: Raymond Sardaby
Hatred. Do I hate anybody? No. Nobody! Anybody who is honest must have trouble in life. You cannot afford to hate, man. You know what hate does to you? When you hate you don’t think, you don’t eat. You’re too busy thinking of what you’re going to do to him. So all the time you’re wasting, you’re going down. You don’t achieve nothing by hating, man. You just waste precious time. Go and do what you have to do. Then when you’re ready to deal with him, then remember him.
Obasanjo? No, I don’t hate him. If I saw Obasanjo I would deal with him though. I can slap him. I can really kick his ass. But killing him, no! Or anybody else. Not killing, man. If I kicked Obasanjo’s ass, it wouldn’t even be because I hate him. I would kick his ass so people would know that bad people who are great can get their ass kicked too when the time is ripe. If their ass couldn’t be kicked when they were doing the bad things, it can be kicked afterwards. When am I going to have the chance to kick his ass? I don’t know, but I’d love to. ’Cause he’s a man who loved to kick other people’s asses. That’s why I would love to kick his ass. If I ever meet him on the road, I will kick his ass. . . . You know where he’s staying now? Obasanjo is staying in a zoo, in a forest reserve: Yankari zoo. He’s already getting his punishment. When you can’t stay with humans you stay with animals and you speak animal language.
Fela Page 21