CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
“Try
to imagine the Civil Rights Movement without “We Shall Overcome,” or the opposition to the Vietnam War without “Give Peace a Chance”’ (Zax, 2011).
From antiquity
to the contemporary African society, music and other arts such as dance,
theatre, poetry, literature, painting, and sculpture have been recognised as
dynamic forces and useful strategies for fighting tyrannical and authoritarian
regimes. As methods of peacemaking and peace-building, music, dance and drama
had long provided the traditional society the most treasured means by which
people or individuals could openly protest and express their grievances
whenever confronted with such occasions or situations through such physical
displays but short of armed conflict. This practice also reduces the prospects
for what could have ignited violent protests and consequent conflicts as much
of contemporary Africa has been witnessing in recent times.
These useful
methods of conflict management had been “adulterated and in some areas, wiped
out by the forces of colonialism including religious psycho-war forces”
(Nwolise, 2005). However, Falola (2012) argued, “European domination of Africa
did not succeed in killing the music and dance, the stories and festivals, the
aesthetics and others that have continued in various forms and reinvented into
others”. Rather, “creativity provides the opportunity to create a counter
discourse to hegemonic representations of blackness. Be they artists, singers,
or poets, creativity allows black people to fight back with disdain, anger, and
rationalisation” (Falola 2012: 3). Omojola (2006) cited an instance of how the
Ebre women society of the traditional Ibibio women of the South-South part of
Nigeria, perform Ebre music during its annual ceremonies to “express themselves
and assert their rights in a male dominated society. Thus, Ebre music is, in
addition to its moral tone, characterised by feminist songs of protest”. Also among the Ga and Akan people in the coastal
belt and Brong areas of Ghana, protest music forms part of the annual rituals
of cleansing; a forum for expressing ill feelings, public opinions, and open
criticism of those in authority as Nketia (1982) has documented.
One could
contemplate if there is anything African and non-western about the uses of
music along with other art forms as struggles for either fighting tyrannical
regimes or protesting against unpopular, oppressive or burdensome conditions.
To be sure, the phenomenon is a universal one, and transcends all times and
climes. Recall the words of Zax (2011) quoted above for opening the study, “Try
to imagine the Civil Rights Movement without ‘We Shall Overcome,’ or the opposition to the Vietnam War without ‘Give Peace a Chance.’” The two events
referred to in that quotation took place in the 60’s, and pertained to the
United States of America. As regards that same case, though going back further
still, the literature records the considerable role of the Negro Spirituals in the struggle of the Negroes (later Black or
African-Americans) for emancipation from slavery beginning from the 19th
century with the Spirituals such as:
When Israel was in Egypt’s land,
Let my people go.
Oppressed so hard they could not stand,
Let my people… (Anon)
This obviously invoked analogy of the Exodus from Egyptian bondage taking place c.1447 B.C., and being the foundation narrative of the Jewish nation. There are, indeed, threads linking the core theme of those Negro Spirituals, meaning “African-American Music as rebellion” (see www.arts.cornell/…/03sullivan.pdf), through the Civil Rights Movements of Dr. Martin Luther King and others with their refrain of “we shall overcome”, to the “liberalisation” as the battle cry of Latin America’s School of Liberation Theology of the 20th century, to Black South Africa’s “Songs of Freedom” used as part of the struggles against the oppressive apartheid rule from the late 40’s to early 90’s. In contemporary African societies, as in other world cultures, music alongside other arts has continued to play significant role as vehicle for conflict resolution and peace building on the one hand and as a medium of political protest on the other hand. Many African playwrights of the contemporary era have used poetry and theatre as medium of political protest. For instances, the South African playwright Athol Fugard fought apartheid through his political plays such as “The Island” and “Sizwe Bansi is dead”. Ngugi wa Thiong’o, a Kenyan novelist and playwright, contributed immensely to his country’s struggle and the liberation of Kenya from colonial rule with his works “Weep Not, Child” and “Petals of Blood” being among the most memorable. Notable Nigerian playwrights who used the performing arts as the medium of protest include Wole Soyinka, the author of “The Trials of Brother Jero” and “A Dance of the Forest”; and Femi Osofisan, the author of “Morountodun” and “Once Upon Four Robbers”. Also, very significant in the Nigeria case had been the folk operas of the acclaimed father of the contemporary Nigerian theatre, Hubert Ogunde, in fighting social injustice and oppressive political system. Some of his folk operas include “Strike and Hunger”, which according to Yerima (2005) was produced as a reaction to the 1945 general strikes in Nigeria, and “Bread and Bullet”, which was a protest medium against the police shooting and killing of the Enugu striking miners. His opera, “Yoruba Ronu” actually got him into trouble with both the federal Nigerian government and the Western regional authorities during the last four years of the Tafawa Balewa prime ministership.
Theatrical stage
has been found to be a rendezvous of public opinion, although as some writers
have pointed out, there are limitations to the use of this medium. Some of the
limitations of the stage were pointed out by Innes (1972) while describing the
role of Erwin Piscator in promoting political theatres in Germany around the
1920s. Innes wrote thus:
traditionally
the stage has been seen as a mirror of the world. But the individual actor is
its prime constituent, which limits it to the particular, while the essentials
of twentieth century existence are abstract: power resides in bureaucracies,
not kings, and conflicts are between masses not duellists. This means that
theatre appears incapable of dealing with the significant aspects of life at a
time when the demand is for relevance… (Innes, 1972: 1).
Protest
is not an uncommon phenomenon of the human society. It is normal for human
needs to continue to increase according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Maslow
1954). However, when and where there are little or no corresponding resources
to meet such needs on the one hand, or when and where there are resources to
meet the needs but government fails to meet them on the other hand, groups or
individuals in society become agitated and are more likely to rise in protest
which is part of man’s own defence mechanism in crisis situation. Protest is as
ubiquitous as conflict. People protest in their homes over unresolved issues of
unkind or unfriendly treatment or situations. Some protests occur at the work
places over unmet and lingering demands regarding salary among other working
conditions, while the most popular protests occur within the political
structures of the nation-state. When governments become nonchalant,
unresponsive and irresponsible to rising demands for improving their standards
of living through the provision of basic social amenities and infrastructures
like good roads, qualitative education, drinkable water, and the intangibles
such as preservation of fundamental human rights and most importantly
provisioning of human security, political protests become an almost inevitable
occurrence. By the same token, imposition of regulations, laws, and levies
considered by others as brutal, burdensome, unjust, vindictive or
discriminatory can also spark off protests (Adekanye, 2007).
From the
pre-colonial times, through the colonial to post-colonial era in African
setting, groups and individuals in societies had used migration as a form of
revolt (Asiwaju, 1976; Bastia, 2011; Abdullahi,
2011; Rodgers and Ingram, 2014; Kerevica, 2014; Motyl, 2014; Loyd and Mountz,
2014; Fisher, 2014;). Richard (1973) documented the migration of
Banyarwanda immigrants to Buganda and of the Rwandan migrants seeking to escape
the repressive tenets of Belgians colonial rule. Also, the harsh realities of
the colonial situation in the 1930s caused the peasant farmers of the Niger
Delta of Nigeria to flee the repressive measures of taxation and force labour
and move into relatively peaceful areas (Aghalino, 1996). Bilger and Kraler (2005); Loyd and Mountz, (2014) have also confirmed
that migration remains an important feature of protest under colonialism and
the post-colonial Africa like the rest of the world.
Sometime in
January 2012, many Nigerians trooped out of their homes to protest the sudden
removal of oil subsidy and the consequent increase in the pump price of Premium
Motor Spirit. It was intended to be a peaceful protest which eventually turned
to rally, especially in Lagos state, where Fela’s music filled the air and it
was a contemplative moment to publicly and collectively listen to the philosophical
messages of the music on the political issues punctuated with speeches by
notable Nigerian human rights activists. Shockingly, the government’s response
to the people’s agitation was to use maximum force to disperse the protesting
Nigerians which resulted in the killing of some and wounding of many of the
protesters by the Nigeria’s police force. This situation is not peculiar to
Nigeria alone but a common experience all over Africa where the African rulers
use the instrumentality of government to suppress, oppress and intimidate the
citizens. Similarly, 34 protesting miners were brutally massacred on August 16,
2012 by the South African police. Many more have been killed and several others
arrested. This is a reflection of the 1973 police massacre of 11 South African
miners. This situation provokes the question, ‘has the post apartheid South
African government brought with it the inhumane propensity of the apartheid
era?’ This ugly experience is worrisome and a common place in many African
states where governments and their coercive apparatuses pose major threats to
human security.
The most recent
wave of protests that has continued to dominate the Nigerian and international
scenes was the #BringBackOurGirls protests in
support of the over 200 Chibok school girls kidnapped by the terrorist group, Boko Haram on the night of 14th
April, 2014. Nigeria, like many other African states has continued to
experience incessant political crises engendered by protracted military
dictatorial rule. This has had serious consequences such as political violence,
stifled economic growth, rising poverty level, inter and intra ethnic rivalries
which was consequent upon unwholesome struggle for political power as a means
of ensuring resource control. This situation and similar ones across the
African continent have engendered protests by individuals and civil
organisations using various means such as hunger strikes, self immolation
(culturally inappropriate in sub-Saharan Africa) music, theatre, strike
actions, lock-out, riots, election boycotts, civil disobedience, withdrawal of
support and emigrations succinctly described by Adekanye(2007) as “voting with
their feet” (p.147).
Many scholars
have researched into various forms of political protests and especially
political behaviours that engender such protest (Eesuola, 2011; Useem and
Useem, 2001; Olafsson, 2007; Hollander and Einwwohner, 2004; Eyck, 2001; and
Freeman , 1999; and Herring, 1989). However a few studies have focused on
in-depth study of the role of music as a potent instrument of political
protest, especially in Africa where music has long been known to occupy such an
important place within the socio-cultural and political milieu. There are of
course many musicians all over the world who have used their music as instrument
of protest. For example, the Vietnam war era witnessed the springing of several
anti-war or Peace movements in Europe where music served as the medium for
condemning bloody wars and urging the need for peace. Notable among the Vietnam
anti-war musicians were Peter Seeger, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, Edwinn Starr, Joe
McDonald, Grace Slick, Terry Talbot, Robert Lamm–Terry Kath, Neil Young, Steve
Goodman, and John Lennon whose “Give
peace a chance” became a peace anthem.
Others still,
such as Bob Dylan (for which he won the Nobel Prize recently), Harry Belafonte,
The Weavers, and Josh White used protest music to support the Civil Rights
Movement in the US; while Black musicians in Diaspora, like Bob Marley, used
their music to condemn colonial mentality and to propagate Pan-Africanism and
Afrocentric ideologies. Several African musicians have used music, both
traditional and popular as medium of protest. Ayo Olukotun (2002) mentioned a
few Yoruba poets and musicians such as Olanrewaju Adepoju, Kunle Ologundudu,
Opeyemi Fajemilehin, Ebenezer Obey, and Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, who vented
societal grievances against the Nigeria military state. Other traditional and
popular poets and musicians identified in the Olukotun study include Sunny
Okosun, Idrees Abdukareem, and Fela Anikulapo Kuti, all from Nigeria, Emmanuel
Jal from Sudan, Hugh Masakeila and Miriam Makeba from South Africa.
Of the artistes
just mentioned, the legendary South African singer, activist, and opponent of
the Apartheid regime, Miriam Makeba who was known while in life as “mama Africa
and the Empress of African song”, in her repertoire of songs actually had a lot
in common with Fela’s protest music, in terms of both content and context. She
was already on the front burner of Malcom X’s political ideology of
Pan-Africanism in the 1960s. A consummate protest musician and civil rights
activist, Miriam Makeba campaigned against the South African system of
apartheid. The South African government responded by revoking her passport in
1960, her citizenship and right of return from a musical tour abroad in 1963,
that kept her in exile for the next thirty years. She was not to return home
from exile until 1990 after the fall of apartheid government. Her protest
through the medium of music transcended the apartheid era as she was committed
to fighting all acts/forms of injustice, inequality, oppression,
discrimination, and inhumanity wherever found. To be sure, Makeba’s whole
personal life history has been described as one about “an epic tragedy of
injustice, domestic upheaval, exile, and torment”
(http://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/nov/11/miriam-makeba-obituary).
Until her death
on the 9th of November 2008, during a concert in Italy organised to
support Roberto Saviano’s protest against the Camorra, a mafia-like
organisation, local to the region of Campania, Makeba remained indefatigable in
her struggle. Among her numerous popular songs are Pata Pata, Jikele Maweni(Retreat
Song), Malaika, and N’kosi Sikelel’ iAfrica (God Bless
Africa). The last song, whose lyrics were first composed and rendered into
music by Enoch Sontonga in 1897, and was one of the war songs of the ANC during
the anti-Apartheid struggle, became in 1994 part of South Africa’s hybrid
National anthem after the transition to multi-racial democracy.
The music of
Nigeria’s Fela Anikulapo Kuti has become one of the most prominent for
illustrating the role that music along with other art forms play as a means of
political protest in contemporary Africa. But this is not because Fela’s music
is more melodious than others or has had better lyrics than the rest, but
because of its consistent onslaught on dictatorial governments, oppression,
domination, inequality, and human rights violation under all regimes holding
sway in his native country, whether military or civilian. Also, his music was
internationally known for its underpinning political philosophy which he often
champions as offering the vision about a better alternative to tyrannical,
despotic and authoritarian rule. Fela
Anikulapo-Kuti did not only sing the songs but was actively involved in the
political struggles that ensued.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
In recent times,
scholars and well-meaning Africans have continued to decry the impoverishing
conditions of bad governance, economic mismanagement and corruption, collapsing
infrastructures, and declining state capacity that is general in much of
contemporary Africa. As pointed out in the background study, various strategies
or methods including violent and non-violent ones were adopted and utilized to
protest their dissatisfaction and grievances. Pressure groups such as the
labour unions have used strike actions, public rallies, and occasional outright
violent riots as methods of political protest. Some protesting individuals too
have resorted to the use of hunger strikes, acts of self immolation and suicide
among others as instruments of political protest. Unfortunately, in most of the
cases, such efforts seem not to have yielded much success in engendering good
governance for the continent of Africa, but often resulted in many of the
protesting groups or individuals being further brutalised, and a number of
these even physically eliminated by many African governments.
While the use of
art forms such as music, dance, drama, poetry, literature, painting, and
sculpture as methods of traditional African conflict resolution has been
considerably studied as shown in the ensuing literature review, the role of
music as a tool of political protest has been understudied. Though some
scholarly works on Fela Anikulapo Kuti exist, the interests and emphases of
these works are different from this study. None of these studies had focused on
the role of music as a tool of political protest, let alone been interested in
examining in great details the lyrics of the said Nigerian musician of
interest, categorising his ideas and lyrics into themes, and subjecting them to
an in-depth interpretation with the view of bringing out possible development
in the evolution of the ideas and themes of his music. This is what the subject
of present study is about.
The central
argument of the thesis is that Fela’s music belongs to the class of music
hereby classified as “protest music”; that a study and interpretation of the
lyrics and ideas making up the music point to an evolution in their development
which sees Fela’s protest music moving from the liberal through the reformist
to the revolutionary phases. Early Fela is different from middle Fela which is
also different from the revolutionary Fela. Phases of events actually
radicalised Fela’s music. This research centres on the evolution of Fela’s
music and interpretation of its themes according to some pre-theoretically
determined phases from the liberal through the reformist to the outright
revolutionary phases, and determination of the music’s overall impact as a
protest medium against bad governance in contemporary Africa.
1.3 Objective of the Study
The main
objective of the study is to examine the nature and impact of music as a medium
of political protest in contemporary Africa, using the protest music of Fela
Anikulapo Kuti as a case study. The specific objectives are to:
1. establish
the use of music among other forms of arts as a medium of political protest in
contemporary Africa;
2. examine
the structural backgrounds, accelerating conditions, and triggering
circumstances that gave rise to the protest elements of Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s
music in Nigeria;
3. trace
the evolution of Fela’s music, and categorise its themes into periodic phases,
from the liberal through the reformist to the revolutionary, while bringing out
the particular events that helped to shape that evolution, including the
progressive radicalisation of Fela and his music;
4. develop
criteria for evaluating the socio-political impact of Fela’s protest music
based on not just the reactions of the government of the day, but also the
responses to Fela’s music, both nationally and internationally at successive
stages in the evolution of the music, and
5. underscore
the continuing relevance of Fela’s protest music and its staying power long
after his demise.
1.4 Research Questions
1. What
role does music play in political protest?
2. What
are the structural background factors, accelerating conditions and triggering
circumstances that gave rise to the protest elements of Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s
music?
3. What
are the various phases into which the themes of the political lyrics of Fela’s
music can be periodized?
4. What
are the dominant ideas distinguishing the three phases in the evolution of
Fela’s protest music, namely the liberal, the reformist, and the revolutionary?
5. What
criteria can be developed for evaluating the socio-political impact of Fela’s
protest music based on the reactions of government of the day (being the butt
of much of his criticism) and responses to Fela’s music, both at the national
and international levels at successive stages in the evolution of the music?
6. Of
what continuing relevance if any is Fela’s music within the political protest
movement in Nigeria to this day?
1.5 Significance of the Study
THE MUSIC OF FELA ANIKULAPO KUTI, ITS THEMATIC EVOLUTION AND IMPACT AS POLITICAL PROTEST IN CONTEMPORARY AFRICA
