I was free. Back on the streets, back to playing at my Shrine. Ooooooooooh, the place was fuckin’ packed every night! The shit with the police had made me more popular than ever. But every single day for the four and a half months that my first case lasted, I had to appear in court. I’d thought, “Everything is finish-o.” But, man, you don’t know Adewusi! Guess what he did, that man? They had set the date for judgment on 27 November 1974. And on 23 November police showed up at my house. They said they were looking for a girl. Again, a girl! The police were many, man. That time, they almost … killed me! They beat the hell outta me, man! My head is still scarred. You can see it. That was the first violent attack I experienced. It was terrible, man. It was so fuckin’ terrible that I don’t want to talk about it any longer. . . . They said they were looking for Folake Oladende. She’s no longer with me either.
You see, to protect myself and my people from police and keep these fucking police from just walking into my bedroom like that, I’d decided to put up a three-and-a-half-metre-high barbed-wire fence around the entire Kalakuta Republic compound. I also kept guards at the gate. But one day the police came anyway with axes to cut down the fence. That was November ’74. They threw tear-gas and beat the shit outta us. They’d come – so they said – to look for one girl they say I “abducted”. Fela abducting woman? Oh, man, these people! They tried using her against me but the girl didn’t co-operate. She refused. The bastards! Ooooooooh, I was beaten by police! So much. . . . How can a human being stand so much beating with clubs and not die? I was cut, bleeding profusely. Couldn’t even stand up, or walk. This time I was taken to hospital, not jail. I was there for three days. Police wouldn’t allow visitors to see me. Later, I was taken to court. Again I got bail and went home. It was bad, man. It was horrible! Another cycle of horrors had begun in my life.
When I went for judgment on 27 November, I was all in bandages and had to lean for support on my friends. The case was thrown out of court. But Adewusi still wouldn’t give up. The next year again, in February ’75, he did it to me again. You know where? In Ilorin. Adewusi’s hometown. Arrangements had been made for me to go and play at the university there. It was a trap; I’m convinced of that today. When I got there, the police were ready for me, man. Road police, just to raid me again. Raids. Raids. Raids. This shit went on for about two or three weeks at Ilorin. But I fucked the whole police up in Ilorin.
I got out of the Ilorin one. It was a real mess for Adewusi and his stupid police. By now everybody was convinced Adewusi and his police were after me for nothing. After that one they laid off until ’76. But in ’75, there had been so many raids. You know what I mean? I’ve only talked about the three main ones. You can’t count how many times they beat my people – in my house, on the streets. . . . So I had to go out and face them, man. They did many things, you know. Like arresting my people anyhow, anyway, for anything!
Then around the middle of ’75, I think, M.D. Yusufu rose up in rank. He became the IG. Inspector-General of police. It was he who cooled everybody down. When he said, “Fela is not a criminal,” that took the heat off. You know, a coup d’état had overthrown General Yakubu Gowon. It was the military who overthrew him on 29 July 1975. And the new Head of State, General Murtala Mohammed, appointed M.D. Yusufu Inspector-General of the police. Right then and there, Yusufu said I wasn’t a criminal, just an artist. That I had my ideas and that the police should stop worrying me. That’s exactly what happened. Because as IG, he controlled the whole police and secret services. So police didn’t worry me again until Obasanjo came to power.* Then that man started his own shit against me, man. Not right away, though. He used soldiers against me, not police, ’cause M.D. Yusufu controlled the police. Obasanjo began his shit in ’76, shortly after taking power. He was so cruel, man! He’d have my people beat up all the time he’d worry them, provoke, attack. All sort of harassments, man. Until one day when he sent one thousand soldiers to Kalakuta Republic … to kill me, man.
Supposedly Obasanjo’s family knew mine. At least, that’s what I’ve been told. But I can’t remember meeting him when I was a child. One of my friends told me I had. He even showed me a picture of Obasanjo visiting my school. He said we’d met at that time. He even told me that Obasanjo would often come to our school to play with us. But I don’t remember him, man. I swear. He’s only a year older than me, so we’re about the same age. We were born in the same town. We went to school at about the same time, he to Baptist Boys’ High School and me to Abeokuta Grammar School. Both schools always had things together, like sports and things like that.
But I don’t remember him from that time.
Olusegun Obasanjo! No, he didn’t start all his horrors against me right away. I was even invited to participate in the Second World Black Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC). That thing was real confusion! Corruption left and right! People running in all directions with no orientation! FESTAC was just one big hustle, so a whole lot of little military men and useless politicians could fill their pockets. They chop plenty-plenty naira.
It was around then that Sandra came back to Nigeria to record an album with me: Upside Down. She only stayed about two and a half months. That was in ’76. The album was heavy, man! Her voice is unique! The lyrics, the beat, the rhythm, the music, man! Ohhhhh, Upside Down was a fucking good album! It dealt with all the confusion and corruption of the Gowon-Obasanjo period. All the shit, man! The chaos! The foolishness of those Africans who look down on the names of their ancestors and take European names. Me, myself, I’d just changed my own name. . . .
You see, at the end of ’75, I got rid of “Ransome”. I replaced it by … Anikulapo. My mother, too, she understood, man, and dropped “Ransome”. What does Anikulapo really mean? It means “Having Control Over Death”. Literally, it means having death inside your quiver. And Fela? Of course, you know: “He Who Emanates Greatness”. Kuti? It means “Death cannot be caused by human entity”. My full name means: “He who emanates greatness, who has control over death and who cannot be killed by man”.
Original album cover of Upside Down with Sandra
Design: Remi Olowookere
Photo: Tunde Kuboye
What’s the importance of a name? A lot, man. Malcolm X knew that. That’s why he chose “X”. Slavery had taken away his African name. So he preferred an “X” rather than the slave-master’s name. But so many people, man, are just brainwashed! They’d come and ask him: “Why X?” That reminds me of that French journalist who just the other day, there in Paris, asked me: “Why did you change your name from Ransome to Anikulapo?” I looked at him surprised. ’Cause he’d asked just the opposite of what he should have asked. That i-d-i-o-t! He should’ve asked why my name had been Ransome in the first place. Me, do I look like Englishman? But what was I talking about? Oh, yes … about Yusufu.
Really, M.D. Yusufu was a heavy guy. Let me first of all tell you a story one boy told me about him, when M.D. Yusufu was just an intelligence officer. This boy had done something and had to run away to hide in Abidjan, Dakar, somewhere like that. Anyway, Yusufu was the one who was supposed to be looking for this guy. He finally found him sitting in a nightclub in Abidjan or Dakar. Yusufu just faced him and said:
“I’ve got you! … But I’m not going to take you back. I’m going to leave you. That thing you did, you will never do it again, will you?”
Imagine that guy’s surprise, man.
“No, Sir, I won’t do it again. I promise. . . .”
And Yusufu left him there.
That’s M.D. Yusufu. A very humane person. He’s someone who really loves Nigeria. A real man! When I met him he was very revolutionary inclined. Yusufu really kept that government from messing up entirely, man. He kept it from doing too many atrocities. That’s what M.D. Yusufu did. That man doesn’t like blood-o! All revolutionaries in Africa have met him, know him. He was the liaison guy between the liberation movements and the successive Nigerian governments. He was beautiful to the revolutionaries in Africa. He’s not corrupt. When he left government in ’79 he didn’t own shit. He didn’t even own a house in Lagos, for instance. Every other government man was owning ten big houses in Lagos and he owned none. He’s a great guy. That’s what I want to say about him. All Nigerians love and respect that man.
Yusufu himself came many times to Shrine. He understood what I was saying in my songs about African emancipation, the struggle against corruption, abuse of power, dictatorship, poverty. . . . And he protected me against those other bastards. One day, end ’75, I think, I said to myself: “What could I give M.D. Yusufu just to show small-small appreciation?” So I said: “I go make ’am something.”
I made him a nice box of multi-colour spotlights. I made it, man. I conceived it and made it with my own hands. It was only for my very Close friends that I ever did that: J.K., Kanmi Oshobu – who was then my lawyer – and a few other friends. When I’d finished Yusufu’s, I took all my girls and boys, packed them in my bus, and went off to Ikoyi, where M.D.’s residence was then. You remember, he lived near military hospital. When we pulled up at the gate, guards with sub-machine guns came up to us.
“Yes?”
“I come see IG. Tell ’am Fela is here!”
“Wait a moment, Sir.”
Police never call me Sir-o! Then, after a moment, they said:
“You can pass.”
My gift was nice, man. It was a white box with four coloured bulbs fitted inside: green, yellow, blue and red. My favourite colours. And you could combine them together. For example, you could mix the red and green lights, the yellow and blue. . . . It was a wild spotlight box, man. Invented by Fela for someone he dug very much. Those lights were my creation. Just like my music. I felt so happy giving it to him. As happy as when I play. Oh, I could see he was moved. And me, too, I was moved. ’Cause I. . . . Well, I dug him a lot, M.D. Yusufu!