Description
Fela Kuti & Africa 70 – “Coffin for Head of State” LP
The notorious Nigerian bandleader/composer, political activist, and Pan-Africanist, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. This album (from 1981), made up of one track only, is a courageous response to the Nigerian army’s destruction of Kalakuta – when over a thousand soldiers violently stormed his communal house – on 18 February 1977. The soldiers threw Fela’s 78-year-old mother out of a second-floor window and the following year she died from the injuries she suffered in the raid. (The black and white photo collage on the cover reproduces Fela’s near-suicidal act of protest, delivering a coffin, in a hail of machinegun fire, to the gates of the army barracks). The 23 minute track, “Coffin for Head of State” (two versions: instrumental on side two) offers a brief discourse on the corrupting influences of both Christianity and Islam on African traditions, that then leads straight into to a verbal attack upon the government thugs: “Them steal all the money / Them kill many students / Them burn many houses / Them burn my house too / Them kill my mama / So I carry the coffin.”
