‘‘My Lady Frustration’ started Afrobeat as a genre’
“From message, rhythm and melody, every aspect of the music was important to him. Is it the message, melody or rhythm, everything was important. For instance, if you attended his rehearsals in those days, in fact, he was very particular about cords, notes and all that. The likes of Tony Allen, for instance, he’d personally take the sticks from him and show the way in drumming. He could strum the guitar. He was familiar with all aspects of the music.”
By Anote Ajeluorou
“IN 1962, Fela’s mother brought his London-recorded Koola Lobitos’ album from Abeokuta to the Lagos radio studio where I worked. I was the only one most likely to play his type of highlife music, because at the time, his music was jazz-oriented. From 1962, he didn’t continue to play the highlife that he came back from London with. He began to play jazz until 1965 when the Nigerian version of the Koola Lobitos band was formed with the likes of Tony Allen, Baba Ani, and other eminent members.”
That was how Fela’s first manager, radio presenter and music writer and historian, Pa Benson Idonije recalled the early years of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s musical journey, when he newly arrived from London after training as a musician at Trinity College. Pa Idonije recalled those old days with nostalgia at the 3-month-long ‘Afrobeat Rebellion’ show that started on October 12 and runs till December 28, 2025, where Idonije’s book, Dis Fela Sef!, an insider’s expose on the musical maestro, was unveiled on Saturday, November 22, 2025 at Ecobank Plc’s HQ, Victoria Island, Lagos.
‘Afrobeat Rebellion’ presents the totality of Fela from his music, his women, his genealogy, his fashion, his lifestyle, music videos on him and his music, and engaging conversations covering all aspects of his musical career and political philosophy.
Pa Idonije, Gboyega Oyedele of Afrologic and Ayomide Olufawo were in conversation with Isabella Adedeji moderating at Saturday, November 22nd, “talks” curated by the lawyer-art patron, Olajide Bello.
Although many believed Fela’s music is a blend of funk, jazz and rock, Pa Idonije situated Fela’s Afrobeat as “a fusion of highlife, jazz and rock. Occasionally, he went with funk, but the Africanness (in it) gave it root.
“From message, rhythm and melody, every aspect of the music was important to him. Is it the message, melody or rhythm, everything was important. For instance, if you attended his rehearsals in those days, in fact, he was very particular about cords, notes and all that. The likes of Tony Allen, for instance, he’d personally take the sticks from him and show the way in drumming. He could strum the guitar. He was familiar with all aspects of the music.”
Pa Idonije recalled Fela’s music trajectory and how his sound moved from its initial tentative experimentation to how he was challenged for not making authentic African sound, how he took that criticism to heart and changed tack.
According to Pa Idonije, “Fela played highlife up till 1961 in London before he came back to Nigeria. But by the time he came home, he started to play jazz. In 1965, he went back to highlife, but by this time, the highlife was jazz-oriented. ‘Onidodo’ and ‘Ololufemi’ all fall into this category. He was improvising on what was in the Nigerian scene. From highlife to jazz, from jazz to jazz superimposed on highlife, and then Afrobeat.”
Benson Idonije
Pa Idonije admitted to the difficulty of successfully imitating Fela’s Afrobeat brand of music; perhaps this is why today’s younger musicians have latched on to the name as brand equity for their kind of music instead of playing it the way Fela did. Their answer being ‘Afrobeats’, a variant the elder statesman said, is ‘over-commercialised’ and lacking Fela’s engagingly political messages that set him apart from the crowd.
“The music (‘Afrobeats’) has been over-commercialised. Like I said before, you have direct influences and remote influences. The direct influences are the likes of Femi Kuti, Seun Kuti; there are a lot of groups in America and Europe who are leading bands based on Fela’s music. Afrobeat, for instance, is very political in terms of message, but you find out that this generation of Afrobeat musicians, whose version an ‘s’ has been added, are just being inspired by Fela’s music, because highlife has transformed to Fela’s ‘Afrobeats’, and this is what they can make of it. And that connotation was made out by business people, record companies, which have to sell the music, which now encompasses the whole of Africa. This small girl from South Africa, Tyra, calls her music Afrobeats. Everybody is now Afrobeats, all musicians from Africa. So they are all inspired by Fela’s Afrobeat, but the message is different. The message in Fela’s Afrobeat is very political, strictly political.”
Pa Idonije then explained what became the death knell of ‘Highlife’ music, West Africa’s most popular music genre that lasted from the 1930s to the 1970s, and by which time Fela had firmly established his Afrobeat brand of music, with highlife fading away in the shadows of Fela’s overwhelming Afrobeat.
“But highlife began to expire and was no more popular the moment Fela came in with Afrobeat,” Pa Idonije stated. “There’s a song called ‘My Lady Frustration’, which Fela recorded in America. That was when he was told his music was not African, because he went to America with his jazz-oriented music, and producers told him that his music was not African. So he began to experiment and stumbled on the music called ‘My Lady Frustration’. Everybody was excited about the new sound, and he knew that he’d discovered African music.
“So ‘My Lady Frustration’ started Afrobeat, as a genre. But Afrobeat manifested itself in 1971 with ‘Jeun Ko Ku’; there, everything is simplified. As a matter of fact, the evolution even went into classical African music with ‘Beasts of No Nation’ in 1986, but he left it as African music. In fact, by the time he died, Fela didn’t admit that he was playing Afrobeat; he said he was playing African music. He said he wanted the music to be listened to just the way people listen to Europe’s classical music of (Frederic) Chopin and (George Frederic) Handel and all that. And he got to that level where people will just sit down and listen to the music with respect. That was what Fela wanted for his music.”
Pa Idonije also put to rest the myth about Fela’s change of career path from medicine to music, as course of study in the UK, saying Fela wasn’t good enough academically to study medicine. In fact, he said, Fela’s younger brother, Beko left to study abroad a year before Fela joined him and was originally admitted to study music and not medicine. He said he still has Fela’s result to show that he couldn’t have applied for medicine, because he didn’t have the subject combination to qualify for medical studies. Pa Idonije queried the wisdom of Fela’s mother, the legendary Funmilayo Anikulapo-Kuti, personally undertaking to promote her son’s musical career if he’d rebelled against her desire for him to study medicine but opting to study music instead!
Afrobeats over-commercialised, lacks Fela’s political message, says first manager, author of ‘Dis Fela Sef!’, Benson Idonije