ABSTRACT
Music constitutes one of the tools of political
mobilisation globally. However, the role
of music as a tool of political protest has been relatively understudied in
Nigeria. Though some scholarly works on Fela Anikulapo Kuti exist, none had
focused on the role of music as a tool of political protest.Studies revealed
thatthere were no sufficient scholarly work that had examined the factors
responsible for the progressive radicalisation of Fela, and thethematic
evolution and impact of his protest music. The study examined the nature and
impact of music as a medium of political protest in contemporary Africa, using
the music of Fela Anikulapo Kuti.
The study adopted survey design, using interpretive
hermeneutics approach. The population of the study was 191 songs of Fela
Anikulapo Kuti between 1960 and 1992. Stratified sampling technique was adopted
to categorise Fela’s songs into the three phases; these are the Liberal, the
Reformist, and the Revolutionary. Purposive sampling was adopted inthe
selection of 29 songs representative of the phases under study. In-depth
interviews wereconducted with eight (8) key informants. Content Analysis,
combined with application of Layman’s hermeneutics was used to analyse and
interpret collected data.
The findings revealed that Fela’s music was
impactful in the areas of political protest, mobilisation, radicalisation of
the polity, and policy formulation. Fela’s music career evolved through three
definitive but overlapping thematic categorizations or phases, the Liberal, the
Reformist, and the Revolutionary. The structural background factors such as
family-acquired traits, education, and cultural environment; accelerating
conditions like exposure to the writings and music of pan-African authors and
artists; and triggering circumstances such as corruption, oppression,
intolerance, and brutality from the national government and its security
agencies, responsible for radicalizing Fela and for translating his music
through the three identified phases were found and discussed. The study
established that the reactions of the different audiences of Fela Anikulapo
Kuti’s protest music, including the government and its agencies serve as
dependable criteria for measuring the impacts of the protest music on the
society. Finally, the more the messages of Fela’s protest music become
increasingly understood, and accepted, the more they gain relevance for varied
socio-political applications.
The study concluded that the messages in Fela’s
protest music were impactful for political sensitization and mobilization of
the masses and for redirecting the Government in Nigeria and across Africa to
be people-oriented and tolerant to protest music as an alternative to
cataclysmic protests. The study
therefore recommended that future researches on Fela’s protest music should be
predicated on the theory of a seamless trajectory of the different thematic
phases rather than an absolute categorisation. Governments of African countries
should develop domestic socio-political ideologies apt for guiding their
processes of governance in line with Fela’s philosophy. Legacies of Fela’s philosophy about governance
contained in his protest music should be incorporated into the curriculum
contents of schools and institutions in Africa.
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”
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.
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