Fela This Bitch of a Life by Carlos Moore

Can you all please remind me to stop reading the biographies of musicians. Most of the time they turn out to be tossers. This, I am really, really sorry to say, is the biggest tosser of them all. 

I'm going to be honest (and this is potentially going to lose me some friends!) I'm not the most massive fan of Fela Kuti's music. The trouble is, I really don't like saxaphone music. At all. I cannot bear the sound of it. So it doesn't matter if you are the most amazing saxophonist in the world, and I'm sure Fela is up there (not as good as Rob Lowe in St Elmo's Fire, obvs), but I'm not going to enjoy it. I love the Afro-beats parts of his music but as soon as the (often 20 minute long) saxophone solos kick in, I just want to turn off. By the way, he doesn't like "Afro-beats". He wants it to be called "African Music" or preferably "African Music by Fela". *Serious eye-roll*. If this was a line at the beginning of the book, I might have been like, "ok it's your music, we'll call it what you want it to be called". But sadly it was at the end of the book and by this stage I pretty much loathed the man. 

Anyway, a quick explanation. I'm going to do this review in two parts. The book is comprised of transcripted interviews or conversations with Fela, his friends and his wives. Then there's an epilogue section written by the author. I've so far read everything up until the epilogue. I suspect he's going to excuse a lot of the attitudes that Fela displays in this book and I want to say what I think about Fela and the story before I read the author's views. To be honest, my opinion on this author is not very high either so if he attempts to excuse any of Fela's behaviour/attitudes, he'll be given fairly short shrift by me anyway. I will explain why I feel like this about the author in a bit!

So first off, this man is off-the-chart arrogant. I mean, this is totally forgivable, right?! He's is clearly a musical genius, it's not really surprising that he's arrogant. Fine. Fair enough. But it really is grating to read it for 269 pages. Good grief man, yeah we get it, you are better at everything and you know better than anyone. Again, I could totally get over this if it wasn't for....

His attitudes towards women. Holy cow. So he's famous for his 27 wives ... or 28 wives I think. He married 27 in one go but he was already married to his "senior wife" so 28. But I don't necessarily think polygamy means you have to be insanely misogynistic. You can marry women by the hundreds if you so choose and still be respectful and treat them as equals. But Fela believes his women should serve him and are there purely for his pleasure, mainly sexual, of course. The best way I can demonstrate is via a few quotes from the book:

"The Queens [the wives] first objective is to keep their husband [Fela] satisfied. Failure to do so may mean their being refused the sharing of his bed when their turn comes."

If they fight they can be "fined a sum of money or punished by slapping". They all get slapped. "Sometimes it's necessary to give my wives some paf-paf-paf-paf-paf-paf .... I slap 'em. Yeah. .... A woman has to respect her husband. If she don't, I feel sorry for you. They need you to show authority, man." It's ok though, he doesn't beat his kids. So there's that.

"Outstanding work or behaviour is rewarded with ... additional sexual time with Fela." Whoop.

When asked why he had the women, "Cause I wanted to fuck them. That was all. I wanted a house where I could be fucking and I had it."

This is not the only one of his views that is problematic. He doesn't believe there should be laws governing sex specifically the age at which sex is because "some women are ready when they're nine". What the fuck. Quite a few of his wives came to him when they were 14 or 15.

Also, homophobia. "The only kind of sexuality that's against nature is homosexuality. 'cause it don't create life". According to him "the law that says, 'don't fuck until you're sixteen' turns men into homosexuals and women into lesbians." As does the food they eat, too many chemicals and pollution. I mean, can you put this down to the era? The culture? A lack of knowledge/awareness? I don't know. I do try not to judge people's historical attitudes by the standards of modern attitudes but he really is particularly abhorrent on this. He even seems to contradict his own homophobic argument by then going on to say, in the very next paragraph, that nothing in the body gives pleasure except sex. Apart from anything, this seems like a really, really odd thing for a musician to believe. If music gives you no pleasure .... I mean surely a musician believes music gies you pleasure?! But, anyway, he does seem to believe that orgasms are the only pleasure, so fine, whatever man. But... so is he saying sex is about pleasure or about creating life???! Because he has a lot of sex. A lot. And it's absolutely clear that he is not thinking about baby making each time. 

So anyway, enough about Fela's attitudes and on to the author's and the reason I find this book more difficult to read than any other and why I said above that I have a very low opinion of this author's judgement even before I go on to read the epilogue. One section of the book is interviews with each of the queens in turn. For those that don't know, in 1977 Fela's home was raided and burnt to the ground by more than 100 soldiers. In the process these soldiers beat and raped many of the women in the household. Each interview with the women goes like this. "When did you meet Fela? How did you end up living with Fela? Do you love him? Does he beat you? Were you raped? Tell me more about that? Oh, you weren't raped? But did you see anyone raped? Did they do anything with bottles? [a lot of the people who 'weren't' raped, were raped with bottles - which obviously IS rape but wasn't considered rape then]. Tell me all the details." What the actual fucking fuck??? Bear in mind that this happened in 1977 and the book was originally published in 1982 so these interviews can't have been done more than, what, four years after the attack?!! I mean I know we live in a post #metoo age but seriously, even back in 1982 this man must have had some awareness that he was asking horrifically traumatic and unnecessary details?!

This is honestly one of the most problematic and difficult books I have ever read. 

...

So ... I have now read the epilogue. And, yep, it's made everything more complicated. The epilogue is by far and away the most interesting part of the book. It explains more about his legacy, his political importance, his influence. You also really get to understand how he was genuinely delusional in his general life. I'm no psychiatrist but I'm sure he would be diagnosed with something now. His belief in spritualism and omens and messages basically ruined his life and sanity. His wives and hangers on would have "visions" to get him to do what they wanted. If one wife pissed off another wife, for example, suddenly Fela's mother's spirit would visit her to explain what he should do to that wife. He had a spiritual advisor from Ghana who basically governed the latter half of his life and the only person who really gained from this relationship was, you guessed it, the spiritual advisor. It's really very sad.

He also was had a seriously sketchy attitude towards AIDS and safe sex. He was believed to have AIDS but he refused to believe in it, calling it a 'white man's disease'. He claimed that his lesions were a sign of his re-birth, that he was getting a new skin. All this would be simply horribly sad if it wasn't for the fact that he was hugely vocal about not believing in the disease and about not using condoms and encouraging people to not use them. He even had a song about it, 'C.S.A.S (Condom Scallywag and Scatter )'.

But it (the epilogue) does go a long way to explain why he wasn't just thought of as a complete dick. Quite frankly the rest of the book made me wonder why anyone else in the world saw him as anything other than a utterly insignificant misogynist (personally rather than musically of course). But here the author goes more into the history of his political actions and importance. How much the successive Nigerian establishments hated him, how he constantly fought against their corruption and fought for the rights of the people.

From a personal point of view, it's quite weird to read as it talks about at least two coups that happened while I lived there both of which I remember. My parents actually knew someone who was involved in one of them. He was eventually executed. (Actually, it occurs to me that this was probably a failed coup - maybe this person was a fan of Fela and his rebellions? I have no real reason to think this! Just adds to the weirdness!). I also remember the issue of currency (Naira) being smuggled out of the country and the government trying to stop this. I remember some particularly horrendous and tense airport experiences as a result. So reading that this was the final thing he was imprisoned for (in 1984), even though there was absolutely no evidence that he did it, is all too real. It's so bizarre knowing this was all taking place when I was there and I had absolutely no clue it was going on. I mean, I was 10/11/12 years old and completely politically and musically unaware (unless it was Buck's Fizz, Shakin' Stevens or Take on Me/ Total Eclipse of the Heart) so I'm going to forgive myself but in hindsight it's a strange belittling sort of feeling.

The saddest thing, I think, is how little he changed really. I mean Nigeria is still unstable and questionably political. It's difficult to know how much the press skews my view on it now. It sounds like the north (where we lived) is a 100% no go zone but Chimimanda Ngoze Adiche (one of my favourite authors) makes it sound wonderful. I'd love to go back one day.

Anyway, I guess my summary of this book is, "shit it's complicated". I want to say "don't read this" but, actually, do! I don't think he deserves to have a rose-tinted image just because he's hailed as a political hero to many. He wasn't an angel or a saint or even a particularly decent person. I wouldn't forgive anyone else his behaviour so I see no reason to forgive his. 

That said, his life is fascinating, completely compelling. And I think I will try to read another biography to find out more. But I will always have this one in mind when I do.