Muzikant Fela Kuti (1938-1997), grondlegger van de afrobeat, was een megaster in Afrika en daarbuiten. Maar hij had ook een sterk politiek bewustzijn, een spirituele en een excentrieke kant. Als er iemand in staat is om recht te doen aan zijn rijke nalatenschap, is het Jad Abumrad wel.
Het twaalfdelige Fela Kuti: Fear No Man maakte hij voor Higher Ground, het productiebedrijf van Barack en Michelle Obama. En het is duidelijk te horen hoeveel geld en aandacht eraan besteed is. In elke aflevering richt hij zich op een ander aspect van Kuti’s leven. Abumrad interviewde meer dan 200 mensen en vertelt aanstekelijk. En dan is er nog zijn muzikale manier van monteren, die de luisteraar meeneemt in de repetitieve en hypnotiserende ritmes die Kuti zijn band eindeloos door liet spelen. Een van de beste series van het jaar.
In a world that’s on fire, what is the role of art? What can music actually…do?
Can a song save a life? Change a law? Topple a president? Get you killed?
In Fela Kuti: Fear No Man, Jad Abumrad—creator of Radiolab, More Perfect, and Dolly Parton’s America—tells the story of one of the great political awakenings in music: how a classically trained ‘colonial boy’ traveled to America, in search of Africa, only to return to Nigeria and transform his sound into a battering ram against the state—creating a new musical language of resistance called Afrobeat.
For years, the world’s biggest stars made pilgrimages to Nigeria to experience Fela’s Shrine, the epicenter of his musical revolution. But when the mix of art and activism got too hot, the state pulled out its guns, and literally opened fire.
Fela Kuti: Fear No Man is an uncategorizable mix of oral history, musicology, deep dive journalism, and cutting edge sound design that takes listeners deep inside Fela’s life, music, and legacy.
Drawing from over 200 interviews with Fela Kuti’s family, friends, as well as scholars, activists, and luminaries like Burna Boy, Paul McCartney, Questlove, Santigold, and former President Barack Obama (just to name a few), Fela Kuti: Fear No Man journeys deep into the soul of Afrobeat to explore the transformative power of art and the role artists can play in this current moment of global unrest.
An Audible Original presented by Audible and Higher Ground. Produced by Western Sound and Talkhouse.
©2025 Higher Ground, LLC (P)2025 Audible Originals, LLC.
In January, 1976, Fela drops his most fiery, confrontational song – “Zombie” is a blistering attack on the army, soldiers, and everyone who “just follows orders” to protect those in power. The song inspires ordinary Nigerians to stand up against tyranny wherever they see it — from traffic cops on the beat to the powerful general / head-of-state. And the response from the government — and its army — is almost immediate. Plus, an unreleased cover of “Zombie” from Santigold.
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