Edited by Azizi Powell
This is Part I of a three part pancocojams series about Nigerian composer, singer, musician Fela Kuti's song "Pansa Pansa".
Part I showcases a YouTube video of Fela Kuti's song "Pansa Pansa". Part I also provides information about Fela Kuti.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/11/nigerian-singer-musician-composer-fela_24.html for Part II of this pancocojams series. Part II provides lyrics to Fela Kuti's song "Pansa Pansa" that I found online as well as some meanings for some of the words to that song that I found online or conjecture from my reading. I also share what I think is the full meaning of this song.
I invite those who know Yoruba to share what these words mean and what this song means in its entirety.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/11/nigerian-singer-musician-composer-fela_79.html for Part III of this pancocojams series. Part III presents some comments from the discussion thread for this embedded video of Fela Kuti's song "Pansa Pansa" as well as from the discussion threads for Part 1 and Part 2 of other YouTube videos of that performance.
The content of this post is presented for historical, cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Fela Kuti for his musical legacy. Thanks to all those who are featured in these videos and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to the publisher of these YouTube videos.
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SHOWCASE VIDEO: Fela Kuti & Africa 70 - Pansa Pansa - FULL HD (Berlin 1978)
Alain Guilloux, Aug 27, 2017
One of the few pro-shot concerts of legendary musician Fela Kuti with his band Africa 70, playing for the jazz festival in Berlin, 1978. Fela was a social activist and leader who fought for freedom and justice in Nigeria. He died in 1997.
DVD taken from "Fela Kuti Anthology"
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SOME INFORMATION ABOUT FELA KUTI
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fela_Kuti
"Fela Anikulapo Kuti (15 October 1938 – 2 August 1997), also professionally known as Fela Kuti, or simply Fela, was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist, musician, composer, pioneer of the Afrobeat music genre and human rights activist. At the height of his popularity, he was referred to as one of Africa's most "challenging and charismatic music performers".[1]
Fela was born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti[2] on 15 October 1938 in Abeokuta, the modern-day capital of Ogun State[3] in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, then a city in the British Colony of Nigeria,[4] into an upper-middle-class family. His mother, Chief Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, was a feminist activist in the anti-colonial movement; his father, Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, an Anglican minister and school principal, was the first president of the Nigeria Union of Teachers.[citation needed] His brothers Beko Ransome-Kuti and Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, both medical doctors, are well known in Nigeria.[5] Fela is a first cousin to the Nigerian writer and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, the first African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.[6]
Fela attended Abeokuta Grammar School. Later he was sent to London in 1958 to study medicine, but decided to study music instead at the Trinity College of Music, the trumpet being his preferred instrument.[5] While there, he formed the band Koola Lobitos, playing a fusion of jazz and highlife.[7] In 1960, Fela married his first wife, Remilekun (Remi) Taylor, with whom he would have three children (Femi, Yeni, and Sola). In 1963, Fela moved back to the newly independent Federation of Nigeria, re-formed Koola Lobitos and trained as a radio producer for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation. He played for some time with Victor Olaiya and his All Stars.[8]
In 1967, Fela went to Ghana to think up a new musical direction.[9] That was when Kuti first called his music Afrobeat a combination of highlife, funk, jazz, salsa, Calypso and traditional Nigerian Yoruba music.[9] In 1969, Fela took the band to the United States where they spent 10 months in Los Angeles. While there, Fela discovered the Black Power movement through Sandra Smith (now Sandra Izsadore), a partisan of the Black Panther Party. The experience would heavily influence his music and political views.[10] He renamed the band Nigeria '70. Soon afterwards, the Immigration and Naturalization Service was tipped off by a promoter that Fela and his band were in the US without work permits. The band performed a quick recording session in Los Angeles that would later be released as The '69 Los Angeles Sessions."...
1970s
[...]
After Fela and his band returned to Nigeria, the group was renamed The Afrika '70, as lyrical themes changed from love to social issues.[7] He formed the Kalakuta Republic, a commune, a recording studio, and a home for the many people connected to the band that he later declared independent from the Nigerian state. According to Lindsay Barrett, the name "Kalakuta" derived from the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta dungeon in India.[5] Fela set up a nightclub in the Empire Hotel, first named the Afro-Spot and later the Afrika Shrine, where he both performed regularly and officiated at personalized Yoruba traditional ceremonies in honour of his nation's ancestral faith. He also changed his name to Anikulapo (meaning "He who carries death in his pouch", with the interpretation: "I will be the master of my own destiny and will decide when it is time for death to take me").[5][11] He stopped using the hyphenated surname "Ransome" because it was a slave name.
Fela's music was popular among the Nigerian public and Africans in general.[12] In fact, he made the decision to sing in Pidgin English so that his music could be enjoyed by individuals all over Africa, where the local languages spoken are very diverse and numerous. As popular as Fela's music had become in Nigeria and elsewhere, it was also very unpopular with the ruling government, and raids on the Kalakuta Republic were frequent. During 1972, Ginger Baker recorded Stratavarious with Fela appearing alongside Bobby Tench.[13] Around this time, Kuti became even more involved in the Yoruba religion.[14]
In 1977, Fela and the Afrika '70 released the album Zombie, a scathing attack on Nigerian soldiers using the zombie metaphor to describe the methods of the Nigerian military. The album was a smash hit and infuriated the government, setting off a vicious attack against the Kalakuta Republic, during which one thousand soldiers attacked the commune. Fela was severely beaten, and his elderly mother (whose house was located opposite the commune)[5] was thrown from a window, causing fatal injuries. The Kalakuta Republic was burned, and Fela's studio, instruments, and master tapes were destroyed. Fela claimed that he would have been killed had it not been for the intervention of a commanding officer as he was being beaten. Fela's response to the attack was to deliver his mother's coffin to the Dodan Barracks in Lagos, General Olusegun Obasanjo's residence, and to write two songs, "Coffin for Head of State" and "Unknown Soldier", referencing the official inquiry that claimed the commune had been destroyed by an unknown soldier.[15]"...
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This concludes Part I of this three part pancocojams series.
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