Consumer Guide Album

Fela Anikulapo Kuti: Zombie [M.I.L. Multimedia, 1977]
Fela Anikulapo Kuti is a Nigerian pianist-saxophonist who makes real fusion music--if James Brown's stuff is Afro-American, he is Amer-African. No U.S. percussion ensemble would distinguish between first and second conga, but Fela's harmonic, melodic, and improvisational ideas are all adapted from Afro-American (which means part European) models. His sax style recalls the honkers, but it's more staccato, more complex rhythmically. Not only that, there are lyrics, in English, with crib sheet--very political, very associative, explicitly antibook. A-