World Music
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£ 43.99
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Queens of Afrobeat – Women, Play, and Fela Kuti`s Music Rebellion
Fela Kuti and Band Members - Book - by D Ayobade
(2024)
In Queens of Afrobeat, the women of Afrobeat music—a unique blend of
jazz, soul, highlife, and West African rhythms—are finally given the
recognition they deserve. This extensive study takes a multifaceted view
of the storied lives of the women behind Fela Kuti's activist music.
Dotun Ayobade's wide-ranging research pulls from interviews with
surviving queens, ethnographic narratives, the exploration of newspaper
archives, and close readings of album covers, photographs, and
promotional materials to help us see and understand the women who
surrounded Fela Kuti on stage and in everyday life.
Not only
were these artists crucial performers and backup singers for Kuti's most
important compositions, they also played key roles in his activism and
campaigns of social protest against the Nigerian government in the
1970s. Drawing on previously untapped material, Queens of Afrobeat
weaves together an intricate narrative of women's participation in
popular music. The stories of these remarkable women transform and
uniquely personalize our understanding of the politics and performance
of one of the major modern musical traditions in Africa.