Six months after the first manager of the late afro-beat king, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Benson Idonije, unveiled his much-awaited memoirs, entitled ‘Dis Fela Sef’, to a gathering at the Freedom Park in Lagos, the book is yet to be released into the market.
As a result of the delay, the author says he has been under pressure from fans of Fela across the country to release the book.
But the publishers, Festac Books, recently told our correspondent that the delay was due to some technical hitches, including lack of funds to reprint copies of the book, preferably in Asia.
“It is better to do one final reprint and that is what we are about realising. Besides, the last six months in Nigeria have been most turbulent economically, especially with the naira on a tailspin and the exchange rate approaching a suicidal point. This rubbished any plan to print the book abroad. As a result, plans had to be realigned and dreams moderated to suit the economic reality,” a representative of the publishing outlet said.
However, Festac Books has promised to release the memoir before the end of 2015. This should sound as good news to thousands of Afro-beat fans, as well as friends and relatives of the iconic musician, who have looked forward to the book with great expectations these past years.
Although other authors who have written about Fela concentrated on his personality and the content of his music, Idonije’s new book appears to focus on aspects of his emergence as a protest musician that are largely unknown to his numerous fans across the world.
During the initial pubic presentation of the book in Lagos, the author-turned broadcaster and music critic had described ‘Dis Fela Sef’ as the product of constant pressure from his friends and associates to write a biography of the Afro-beat creator.
Also recounting how he helped to shape Fela’s music career from the beginning, he said, “I met Fela in 1963. He was already playing music in London. When he returned to Nigeria, he came with an album. I was presenting a jazz music programme on radio at the time. He was an avid listener to this programme. We became friends and I noticed that though he played in the style of Victor Olaiya, he was ready to play jazz. So we formed the Fela Ransome-Kuti Quartet until a few years later.”
Idonije noted that though Fela shifted from highlife, which was the genre of the day, to jazz, he did not depart from the former. The result was an exotic blend of jazz and highlife that still won many followers among the youth.
All that information, detailed and revealing, and many more can be found in the pre-release edition of the book, which is somewhat in circulation at the moment. It also reveals how Fela’s mother, the late Mrs. Olufunmilayo Ransome-Kuti, remotely influenced his movement from jazz/highlife to Afrobeat, as well as how he initially lost most of his fans to Geraldo Pino in the late 1960s.
In the book, Idonije also recalls the final phase in the development of Fela’s music, beginning from when he travelled to the United States of America in 1969 and his eventual radicalisation in that country.
Fela’s friend, Sandra Smith, a member of the radical Black Panthers Organisation, who was largely instrumental to the change in his personal ideology and the content of his music, from mere love songs and social commentary to protest music, is also mentioned in the book.
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