The BBc showed a lovely film about the Nigerian musician, and originator of the Afro-Beat genre, Fela Kuti. You can watch the film, here

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000pr2n/arena-fela-kuti-father-of-afrobeat

In the 1960s Kuti fused elements of jazz, soul and high life genres to great a universally appealing Afro-Beat form of funk. The film described the musical origins of this fusion and its wide appeal.

The film also presented Kuti’s remarkably open living and working arrangements in his self-styled commune…and accounted for the Pan-African transcendent potential of the music and its associated political power.

The legacies of colonialism have tended to continue the divisive African rule. A universally appealing musical culture was understood, by Kuti, to have enormous cultural and political power. It was interesting to see the film contrast this with the work of, say, Bob Marley or Nile Rodgers. Not to mention George Clinton and Earth, Wind and Fire…