miércoles, agosto 18, 2004

The Fela Kuti Conection

Pablo dice:

Todo surgi� de revisar unas viejas fotocopias, buscando quien sabe que. All� encontre una nota a Brian Eno fechada en 1980, en el NME. Copio en ingl�s, no me dan ganas de traducir:

"Well, among other things, it would be unable to record Eno's ecstatic embrace of his latest discovery: Northwestern Africa. Our talk has been intermittently recharged with roomfuls of the magnificent flamboyance of Fela Ransome-Kuti and his Africa 70 ('That's his seventy wives, the lucky fucker! He lives in a principality in Nigeria with all his wives'). Back on the black leather after an extended bop to 'Zombie', Eno humbly proselytises on behalf of his hero.

Maybe I can make the people of England forsake their new wave records and rush out to buy Fela Ransome-Kuti. Actually, I just hope people listen to it. He's one of the leading exponents of High Life music, but then there are plenty of others. It's a beautiful music -it's so thrilling to me, I could work 24 hours a day on this music. It's rhythmically sophisticated in an interesting way; it's perfect for dancing because it leaves holes in all the right places -it pulls your body in a most interesting way. Like the great revolution of reggae was that it left a hole somewhere where rock music always puts it in. And that poises you body on a precipice so you're constantly kept in motion. This leaves two holes generally ...

You listen to this and you can't help but think, 'What do we have? The fuckin' Jam!' I've had this record since 72 or 73, but lately I've been listening to High Life and African pop music quite a lot. There is a very good book I've been reading, too -African Rhythm and African Sensibility by John Miller Chernoff, I think it's University of Chicago Press. David Byrne and I started getting into African music and culture; well all the Taking Heads did, but David and I started work together which was very consciously influenced by it".

�Desconoc�a el dato por completo! �Eno fan de Fela! Dos en�filos como Tom�s Notcheff y Jorge Fern�ndez lo confirmaron, con la misma frase: "Eno dec�a que las tres mejores bases r�tmicas de la historia son las de James Brown, la de Neu y la de Fela Kuti & Africa 70". �Top! Eso se completa con la gran influencia de Fela tanto en los Talking Heads como en My life... con Byrne (esto �ltimo es lo que se desprende de la �ltima oraci�n del p�rrafo de esa nota del New Musical Express).

Hoy entro a The Guardian, secci�n de arte, �y una nota sobre Fela! Otra historia que desconoc�a o, mejor dicho, que conoc�a a medias: s� sab�a que Mc Cartney hab�a grabado en Nigeria Band on the Run, y que la hab�a pasado m�s o menos; no sab�a que all� se hab�a hecho fan de Fela, que lo hab�a visto en vivo y que le hab�a partido la cabeza. Viendo la nota, hay m�s tipos que lo legitiman, aparte de los nombrados: Gilberto Gil, Bootsy Collins, Viv Albertine (Slits), y hasta Damon Albarn, que hasta donde se va a utilizar a los m�sicos de Africa 70 para grabar un disco.

M�s cosas para el asombro, algunas conocidas, otras no: Fela admirador de Handel, Bach y Schubert; el compromiso pol�tico del hombre; el asesinato de su madre, etc...

Bueno, si despu�s de todo esto no se bajan al menos Zombie, �ustedes se lo pierden!


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