Bob Marley and Fela Kuti: A Music Lesson
The first time I heard Bob Marley was in my early 20s. I was drinking in a bar on the south side of Milwaukee where I grew up, and I met a pretty young lady who invited me to her apartment. She turned on her stereo, and played a tape of Bob Marley. She also had an ounce of some really powerful Hawaiian marijuana, and we smoked enough of it to send me into a near hallucinatory state. Marley's music was just wonderfully hypnotic and alluring in a way I'd never experienced before. The combination of the music, the weed, and the pleasure of this woman’s company made for a memorable evening.
The first time I heard Fela Kuti, I was engineering a recording session with a well known artist at a recording studio in New York City. We were taking a break from recording and the artist popped a tape in the cassette deck. It was Fela Kuti. Wow! I'd never heard anything like it before. Most of us in the studio had never heard him before and were staring at the speakers in amazement. His grooves and arrangements are second to none. It was a game changer moment!
I bring these two up because I had an epiphany about them.
The instrumental and compositional ideas Marley and Kuti had were truly great, but very different. There is, however, one fundamental difference between them that really stands out, yet seems to go completely unnoticed,,,,
Bob Marley's lyrics sound like prophetic visions.
Fela Kuti's lyrics sound like lectures.
The importance of making this distinction cannot be overemphasized.