not a gendarme let us go to the police station. So they went there as Fela was so sure that he was going to report that the man was impersonating a policeman.
Immediately they got there the man gave Fela a big slap and told him to go behind the counter-back, as “I be gendarme” and all the other police said, “Oh yes, you be gendarme.” You see Fela was a rebel and when he wants something he will just do it.
After that [the two 1971–72 promotions] anytime I used to go to Nigeria Fela put me in a hotel, as we were close. Just to give you an example of my relationship with Fela there was a time in the early 1970s when Remi [Fela’s wife] was sick and needed convalescence. I was at Fela’s Afro-Spot club in Yaba [originally called Kakadu], and Fela told me that “I’m sending Remi, the children, and their English grandmother [Remi’s mother] to you in Ghana to look after them.” So I housed them at the Star Hotel in Accra, although Fela paid the bills. I used to go and pick up Remi and the three children and take them to Flagstaff House, the zoo, and places. They stayed two weeks. Remi was very nice, and in a way I would say that Fela didn’t deserve that woman, as she was so patient and understanding with his womanizing.
Was it Fela who introduced the South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela to Faisal Helwani and his band Hedzoleh?
Yes, I took both Uhuru and Hedzoleh to record in December 1973. Hedzoleh recorded an album [called Introducing Hedzoleh] with Hugh. You see, I was the A&R [artist and repertoire] man for EMI at the time. In fact it was Fela who introduced me to the EMI management, as he was then recording for them. Mike Wells was the managing director, and then Mr. Plumley came in. But Fela fell out with Plumley. There was a time I was passing through Nigeria and met Fela at Lagos airport. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was coming to stop Plumley going to London, as he owed Fela. Fela said he’d been at Plumley’s house but Plumley had been dodging him. So Fela stopped Plumley from going to England that day. There was a lot of crowd there with Fela. They were all arrested and taken to the Apapa police station where Plumley gave an undertaking or check—and Fela was paid. That’s the type of man Fela is—if he wants something he will go all out, using legal or illegal means to get what he wants.
PART TWO CONFRONTATION
5
THE KALAKUTA IS BORN
On April 30, 1974, the police raided Fela’s house, opposite the old Africa Shrine at the Empire Hotel, Mushin, and he was charged with possessing Indian hemp. In fact, he did have some on him, but he quickly swallowed it. Hemp was a term, incidentally, that Fela himself hated as he claimed that cannabis was not Indian. According to him it had been around in Africa for centuries, so he called it Nigerian natural grass, or NNG.
After the raid he was imprisoned for a while at the police CID headquarters at Alagbon Close. It was because the police examined his stools for traces of marijuana that he wrote the song about his “expensive shit” that was so interesting that doctors had to examine it with microscopes. As the note on the album cover says: “The men in uniform alleged I had swallowed a quantity of Indian Hemp. My shit was sent to lab for test. Result negative—which brings us to Expensive Shit.”
In fact he was never prosecuted, as the other prisoners would keep switching their buckets of feces with his, so the police could never find any evidence.
During this time at Alagbon Close he was locked in a cell the prisoners jokingly called the “Kalakuta Republic” (kalakuta is Swahili for “rascal”) and scratched this name on the cell wall. Because of Fela’s popularity with the downtrodden Lagosian underclass, or “sufferheads,” he was elected “president” of this “republic” by his jail mates. On his release he promptly named his house the Kalakuta Republic and brought out two albums whose lyrics dealt with his brush with the law. One was the above-mentioned Expensive Shit and the other Alagbon Close.
Fela yabbing to Lagosians outside the Africa Shrine on November 26, 1974, after his court acquittal.
On November 23, the same year, Fela’s house was attacked for the second time, this time because he was harboring a young runaway truant girl called Folake Oladende, who wanted to join his band. Her father was the inspector general of police for Lagos. The police officer claimed his daughter was only fourteen, and so under age. She claimed she was seventeen. After several fruitless attempts to get her back, the exasperated inspector general sent in the riot police, complete with metal helmets, shields, and tear-gas grenades.
By coincidence I was staying at the Africa Shrine that day, having just come to Lagos with two of Faisal Helwani’s bands, Basa-Basa and Bunzus, to record at the new eight-track EMI studio in Lagos. What follows is a journalistic account I made of that memorable eleven-day trip, written on my return to Ghana.
THE 23 NOVEMBER RAID
After a sixteen-hour journey to Lagos, a session at Victor Olaiya’s Papingo nightclub at the Stadium Hotel, and finally sleep at the Empire Hotel (Africa Shrine) Mushin, we were woken up on our first morning (23 November) by the roar of an angry crowd.
From our hotel balcony we could see about sixty riot police axing down Fela’s front door, just a hundred yards away. Fela’s people fought back, so then came the tear gas, and we Ghanaian musicians were down-wind!
We discovered later that he had refused to allow the police to make a routine search of his place and consequently suffered injuries to his head that needed nine stitches for his trouble.
According to the Nigerian Daily Times of 27 November: “Afrobeat King, Fela Ransome-Kuti, stepped into freedom from confinement again yesterday when the police granted him bail following his arrest after last Saturday’s police raid on his home.” The very same day he was released he had to appear in court, and the Times continued its report: “Fela was this morning discharged and acquitted by an Apapa Chief Magistrate’s Court on a three-count charge of unlawful possession of Indian hemp.”
That day we saw a happier demonstration from our balcony than the one on Saturday—after the court case a huge crowd followed Fela’s cavalcade to the Shrine, causing a massive go-slow of traffic.
The same night Fela played alongside Basa-Basa and the Bunzus, with one arm in a sling and wearing a skullcap that he humorously called a “pope’s hat.”
For the days Fela had been away his lawyer had sung the vocals and subsequently became known as “Feelings Lawyer,” as he made such a good substitute.
Faisal most certainly did the right thing when he decided to lodge us at the Shrine, the centre of the modern West African music scene. There we met Johnny Haastrup of Moro-Mono, who told us he was thinking of bringing his band to Ghana for a tour. Berkely Jones of BLO was around briefly and mentioned that he had recruited a new bass player. Big Joe Olodele, who used to be with the Black Santiagos in Ghana, is now with the Granadians—and Albert Jones from the Heartbeats ’72 was down from his base in Kano. And we had live Juju every night from the Lido nightclub opposite the hotel.
Our bands went down very well at the Papingo, where we played four nights alongside the resident All Stars (ex–Cool Cats). We then spent two days in the recording studio where Faisal and Fela were co-producing the session, and Faisal jammed on organ for some numbers. On 30 November we all departed, including the midget Kojo Tawiah Brown who came as our mascot, leaving Fela and Faisal to mix the recordings.
We were meant to play at the Cultural Centre in Cotonou, Dahomey
