Search for the singer with death in his pouch

By Daniel Nelson

Finding Fela

Image by Finding Fela

That’s the view of Stephen Hendel, the US businessman who provided the initial impetus for the Broadway production of the musical Fela! and is the executive producer of the forthcoming documentary film Finding Fela.

Hendel’s enthusiasm is infectious but his judgement of the Nigerian musician seems extravagant. It also illustrates one of the difficulties facing the film’s distributors because many outside Nigeria will not have heard of Fela (even though Time magazine named him one of the heroes of the previous half-century for his “revolutionary soundtrack”).

First, let me declare an interest.  I am part of one of Fela’s records. I attended a gig, recorded and subsequently released, where I and the other members of the audience were encouraged to provide a chorus of ‘Na-na-nanas’.

So I freely admit to a bias in favour of his relentless, driving, rhythms and his equally relentless, vociferous opposition to the corruption and bullying of Nigeria’s political and military elite.

Relentless opposition, that is, after his politicisation in the 1960sw by his US lover, the singer Sandra Izsadore. Before she started his education, she recalls, he was singing about soup – literally.

And that’s the strength of the documentary: it does succeed in Finding Fela, filling in and explaining many of the details of his life, warts and all. There were certainly warts, including ridiculous sexism (the low point of which was his mass marriage to 27 women), the neglect of his children (who nonetheless are carrying on his legacy), and his denial (and, presumably, spreading) of AIDS – a denial all the more reprehensible because of the commitment to openness and education by his doctor brothers.

But he met an obtuse, thuggish elite head on. Director Alex Gibney is surely right in saying that “His music had a corrosive effect on those who abused power” and showed that “in the right hands music can be an incredibly effective weapon against oppression”. The  impact of Afrobeat is proved by the ferocity with which the country’s rulers retaliated. He was repeatedly arrested, viciously beaten and saw soldiers torch his compound, the “independent Kalakuta Republic”, and brutalise its occupants. Among the horrors they committed was the murder of his mother, one of Nigeria’s greatest pioneers. Yet they could not crush him.

The film is not a music documentary, but it features a lot of music. It explains the development and power of the music and the man, drawing on hours of recovered film, including extraordinary footage of his funeral, and is informed by an unusually diverse range of interviews. The result is a fascinatingly complex picture.

The element that will draw most controversy is the use of film of rehearsals and scenes from Fela! the musical (which coincidentally show the genius of choreographer and director Bill T. Jones). Some viewers will find this incorporation of theatrically staged scenes of Fela’s life - a celebratory Broadway version of reality - as confusing and inauthentic, unfit for a serious documentary. My own initial resistance gave way to admiration for the way the showtime footage illustrated points about Fela’s life and performances.

Let Stephen Hendel have the last word: “Name another artist who sacrificed everything and used every fibre of his gift to speak truth to power and in the process created brilliant music. That’s what Fela did. The price he paid for his commitment was devastating. He lost his band, his mother and his spiritual way. He was persecuted by the government, duped by h charlatans and died of AIDS, but they couldn’t stop him from fighting. It’s an amazing story.”

And this is a fitting and entertaining tribute.

*         Finding Fela will be screened at the BFI, Belvedere Road, SE1, with an introduction by Fela’s manager and long-time collaborator, Rikki  Stein, on Thursday 4 September. Info: 7928 3232

*         General release date in Britain:  5 September