Lagos
Lagos appears in 1 Songsheets issue: Afrobeat. 3 artists in the archive came from here, including Tony Allen, Femi Kuti and Seun Kuti.
The Shrine nightclub on Pepple Street, Ikeja, becomes ground zero for Afrobeat's birth, where Fela and Africa '70 perform marathon sets that transform music into political ceremony from 1970 onward. EMI Nigeria and Decca capture early Afrobeat recordings, though Fela will soon establish his own Kalakuta Records to maintain creative control, while studios like Phonodisk and Abbey Studios document the explosive scene. The city's Surulere neighborhood houses Fela's Kalakuta Republic commune, where the music, politics, and lifestyle merge into an inseparable whole that defines the decade.
Scenes
Artists from Lagos
- Tony Allen
Tony Allen was born Tony Oladipo Allen in Lagos in 1940, the son of a Nigerian father and a Ghanaian mother, and picked up drumsticks at 18 while working as an apprentice technician at a Nigerian radio station.
- Femi Kuti
Femi Kuti, Fela's eldest son, grew up inside the world his father built—the Kalakuta Republic, the Afrika Shrine, the constant friction between music and the state.
- Seun Kuti
Seun Kuti was fourteen years old when his father died in 1997, and he took over leadership of Egypt 80 almost immediately.
