In 1977, a battered Fela Kuti carried his mother’s coffin to the gates of Nigeria’s military ruler. This deep dive looks at how the son of an elite activist family became the principal innovator of Afrobeat and one of the most uncompromising critics of state power in the 20th century.

We trace his studies at Trinity College of Music in London, his political awakening in Los Angeles through Sandra Smith and Black Power literature, and the sound he built with drummer Tony Allen. Then we cover the Kalakuta Republic, the Zombie album, the raid by 1,000 soldiers, his marriage to 27 women, his imprisonment, his contradictions, and his death from AIDS complications in 1997.

• His mother Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti and the 1946 women’s tax revolt
• Why he sang in Pidgin English to reach audiences across Africa
• Tony Allen’s drumming and the mix of funk, highlife, jazz, and Yoruba music
• The Zombie album that mocked soldiers and the deadly 1977 raid that followed
• Fifteen-to-thirty-minute songs, two baritone saxophones, and the underground spiritual game