11. Fela KutiLive!

I’d wanted to go to Africa for a good ten years ever since I was turned onto African drumming. It so happened that a tour with my group Air Force was cancelled and I had the time and ability to go there. That album (Africa ’70) was a fantastic album. And that record’s still very popular today. Really happening music. 1971 – much much later on people were talking about world music and African music – we were somewhat ahead of our time. Fela was great to work with, he remained a very good friend for a long time. Living in Africa was a great experience – I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though I lost a fortune. EMI slaughtered me. They didn’t want me having a recording studio in what they termed as their territory. They told me to my face they were going to screw me. And they did. They co-owned a pressing plant in Nigeria with Decca. And they wouldn’t press our records. So we had to send our tapes to Island Records, Chris Blackwell, to get them pressed. By the time we’d done that, it was costing money, not making money to put out records. It was a disaster for me. I was supposed to die, but I didn’t!