Godmothering Afrobeat
by Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún
Recently I started listening to Fear No Man, a new podcast series by Barack Obama’s Higher Ground. Hosted by Jad Abumrad, the creator of Radiolab, it tells the story of the invention of Afrobeat, which came from the melding of West African music with funk and jazz, and also of the life of its originator, Fẹlá Kútì (1938–1997), and his role in providing a liberating space for the creation and enjoyment of Afrobeat.
There are only four episodes so far, and they’re really good. But after listening to Episode 2, which features the story of how Fẹlá became more political and militant during his time in Los Angeles in the early ’60s, one name struck a chord—Sandra Izsadore, originally Sandra Smith, a former member of the Black Panthers whose whirlwind romance with Fẹlá helped turn the musician from a tame highlife trumpeter into a radical political and protest musician. The podcast touches Black Liberation, pan-Africanism, colonialism, grief, sex, and rock & roll, as well as immigration, and the identity crises Fẹlá endured through having been raised in Nigeria, educated in England, and then exposed to the struggles of African-Americans, which were not yet fully understood in Nigeria.
Fẹlá came from an aristocratic and activist Ẹ̀gbá family who played an important role in early Nigerian history. Episode 4 examines this family pedigree and how the women’s liberation struggles of ’40s Nigeria, led by Fẹlá’s mother, Fúnmiláyọ̀ Ransome-Kútì, laid down the early foundations of his activism.
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