Fela Kuti "Koola Lobitos/ The '69 L.A. Sessions" -- Problem Solved

Man I just cannot get enough of the 30-plus minute Fela choons. Esp. the way he develops his lyrics, saving key lines for somewhere after the 15-minute mark as on Coffin for Head of State when he said "they kill[ed] my mother." Drama takes time to develop, that's my position

thanks though for the review of this '69 record, it sounds triffic

It might be helpful to remember that it is, among other things, dance music so the complaint about repitition is sort of beside the point. Also from the 20 or so of his albums I have there is quite a bit of variation in the overall structure of the song. There's the one (is it "Confusion"?) where there is essentially a v. odd 10-minute drums-and-organ duet, then a long series of increasingly dense drum rolls before it kicks in. Lovely. I agree about the lyrics. I esp. like how he sort of paints a scene in brief, pithy strokes and eventually makes a point which draws on those little bits of information, sort of echoing the progression of the music. I hope that made some sense.

the track that sold me was "Expensive Shit" - that song blew my mind in high school, and he's never sounded better to me than that first time.

my favorite is still "kalakuta show" with the ridiculous organ (?) runs that sound straight out of eno-era roxy

big big big fan of the Confusion/Gentlemen twofer and The Best Best obv. criticizing Fela for repetition is like taking Kraftwerk to task for not using any acoustic instruments

i don't mean that individual songs work repetition to death. that i like. and don't get me wrong, i still love the shit out of him, i just don't think i'll 'get' anything new out of buying new records.

what i'm trying to say is that there's a repetition between albums.

but, all this said, i'll have to check out Confusion. sounds cool.

oh, and i'll have to listen to his lyrics a little bit different. that's always the last thing i pay attention to in music. the voice to me is usually just another instrument rather than a literary device

gotcha. you should really start w/The Best Best, it's 2 discs and it's all primo, plus some of the tracks are cut in half, which actually increases their listenability quite a bit. 2 1/2 hours, the Afrofunk bomb, retails pretty cheap, can't possibly go wrong, etc.

i already have tons of his records, so a Best Of would be rather redundant.

almost everything i've heard from him i've loved. even the 80s stuff, which i thought would suck, surprisingly doesn't. have any of you heard 85's bill laswell produced 'Army Arrangement'? i guess fela was in jail when laswell took the original tapes and added extra shit to them. fela was totally pissed about this and thought the album sucked. i was expecting it to sound like utter shit (most things laswell touches turn to shit), and even though it's got some gated drums and some 80s production i could probably live without, it's still pretty good.

you know, another thing that got me feeling Fela again, at least through a side route, was the current Tony Allen discs. the production value on them is way different. surprisingly it's not too smooth for me (maybe a song or two). "Black Voices" is pretty great. even with it's frenchy vocoder voices. and the disc he did with Dr. L, "Psycho on the Bus" is pretty fab. it's so stylistly different than any of the afro funk i've heard before. it's got some really dubbed out moments,and even an amazing track that sounds like it's straight off of "In a Silent Way".

and what is your guys' take on Antibalas and the Daktaris?

I have tons of his records, too; The Best Best is what I play.

I like Antibalas and the Daktaris (and Lee Fields and Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings) all very much.

how is that Sharon Jones? my friend saw her live on Valentine's Day and said it was just the most amazing show ever. said he was getting sweaty just watching her. i've seen a used copy of her cd for 7$, but keep passing it up. is it really james brown-y 45 style funk?

Great Recommendation.