In his introduction to Fela: Music Is the Weapon, the 384-page graphic novel about the life of Afrobeat innovator and activist Fela Kuti, artist Jibola Fagbamiye describes his own teenage years in Lagos. Living with his aunt, he was a mere few blocks away from the Kalakuta Republic, the compound where Kuti grew his band, community, activism, and revolutionary new sound under the same roof. By the ’90s, Fagbamiye’s day, Kuti had almost become a hermit. Disgruntled. Scary, even. Whispers of the bacchus parties, many wives, and strange brews faded into echoes. The political climate remained as tense as it was when Kuti began, with colonial scars bleeding into continued police tyranny.
Despite Kuti being Nigeria’s biggest superstar, Fagbamiye saw more celebrations of him in North America, especially around the time of the 2008 musical Fela! (The development of Fela! is featured in Alex Gibney’s 2014 documentary Finding Fela.) His frustration inspired intense research and then a conversation that evolved into a “full-blown collaboration” with writer Conor McCreery (Kill Shakespeare) on a fictionalized graphic novel that is a retelling of Kuti’s life, albeit one with some comic book trappings.
Music Is the Weapon tracks Kuti’s career from the 1960s through the ’80s, as he travelled around the world to outrun the influence of James Brown and outmanoeuvre political persecution. In America, Kuti found a shape to his sound, but the purpose took a little more refinement. A tryst with singer and Black Panther member Sandra Izsadore lit a political spark for Kuti, one that only grew larger when he took it home. The interactions between Kuti and Izsadore are the best sections of the book. In America, Kuti practically brushed off the Black struggle as a pittance compared to the violence in Nigeria. When Izsadore made her way to Africa, she was jolted like a fish out of water too, stunned by the unabashed political corruption as much as she was shocked to learn that Kuti was not only married with children but also maintaining a harem of more than twenty women.
The book is most engaging when it focuses on the intimate moments that allow its characters to speak and interact on their own terms, but much less so when it slips into the familiar shape of rock ’n’ roll biographies, where characters become like hyperlinks on a Wikipedia page. When it comes to his musical success, there’s a bridge constructed of magical thinking, as the reader knows his icon status won’t end up being disputed. His success in the political realm is far messier.
Kuti had no problem getting under the authorities’ skin. His inciting song “Zombie” re-emphasized the ghoulish nature of the regime. After police brutality gave his mother the injuries that led to her death, Kuti began to unravel. His passion and fury turned him into a bit of a mark, as he invested a lot of time, money, narcotics, and the patience of those around him into the palms of holy men and hucksters. The authors make it clear that Kuti did not have the correct skills for politics or liberation. It is through the novel’s heroic dream sequences, where a bow-wielding warrior version of Kuti claims victories over Pink Floydian manifestations of authority, that Kuti can score the points that life denied him.
The flow between art, culture, and authority remains just as crystalline today. As jackboot ICE agents patrol outside American daycares and hospitals, the administration in power seems just as itchy about what TV has to say, with Trump openly wielding the FCC against late-night hosts. Meanwhile, the Canadian government threatened to ban the Irish hip-hop group Kneecap from touring the country over their outspoken support for Palestinians. Authorities still seem anxious that artistic movements could one day topple them, while modern history appears to trend the opposite way. The authors lay out the route of Kuti’s struggle but flinch when it comes time to stake a conclusion in the culmination of his struggles. The power of music may not be a strong enough weapon against the literal ones.
Zack Kotzer is a writer and ex-carnie. His work on video games has appeared in NOW Magazine, The Atlantic, Vice, The Onion AV Club, and Kill Screen. He is also the assistant editor of Steel Bananas, a Canadian arts zine and boutique press. He more or less grew up in arcades, so if you decide to talk to him about pinball clear your schedule first.