Queens of Afrobeat : Women, Play, and Fela Kuti's Music Rebellion / Dotun Ayobade.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ayobade, Dotun, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women singers.

Friendship.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (388 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Indiana University Press 2024

Bloomington, Indiana : Indiana University Press, [2024]

Summary:

"In Queens of Afrobeat, the women of Afrobeat music--a unique blend of jazz, soul, highlife, and West African rhythms--are finally given the recognition they deserve. This extensive study takes a multifaceted view of the storied lives of the women behind Fela Kuti's activist music. Dotun Ayobade's wide-ranging research pulls from interviews with surviving queens, ethnographic narratives, the exploration of newspaper archives, and close readings of album covers, photographs, and promotional materials to help us see and understand the women who surrounded Fela Kuti on stage and in everyday life. Not only were these artists crucial performers and backup singers for Kuti's most important compositions, they also played key roles in his activism and campaigns of social protest against the Nigerian government in the 1970s. Drawing on previously untapped material, Queens of Afrobeat weaves together an intricate narrative of women's participation in popular music. The stories of these remarkable women transform and uniquely personalize our understanding of the politics and performance of one of the major modern musical traditions in Africa"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction

Birth of a restless collective : how the "girls" converged

From FRK to "Lady" : a revised genealogy of the music's other women

To improvise a precarious freedom : before FESTAC 77

Unknown soldier : the 1977 Kalakuta Invasion and the geopolitics of intimacy

"Spirit catch am" : possessions, paranoia, and the tumultuous Egypt

Facing the music : AIDS and alienatoin after Fela

Where we fall is where we pick ourselves up from" : a legacy in fragments

Conclusion : what Afrobeat owes women it may never repay.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780253068651

0-253-06865-7

0-253-06863-0

0253068657

9780253068637

0253068630