“When trouble sleep, Iyanga go wake am, na wetin him dey find. Palaver, he dey find Plalaver ego get-e o, Palaver, he go get-e o…”
That was the song blasting through my Smartphone’s earpiece as I started the journey to the Kalakuta Museum; it used to be known as the Kalakuta Republic but was now a relic that showcases the life and times of the Nigerian music legend, activist and philosopher known to the world as Fela.
To many Nigerians, he is one of the greatest singer, activist, philosopher and an inspiration that saw beyond his time; little wonder he was known to them as the Egbami Eda, the great one.
After attending the year’s edition of the annual Felabration; a music festival that celebrates the embodiment called Fela, I made up my mind to visit the Kalakuta Museum which had been commissioned by the Lagos State governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola on the 15th of October, 2012 to his many followers, fans, admirers and students from the school of thought he left behind 15 years after he passed on.
With so many events and celebrations held across the world to immortalize the man described by the Herald Sun as Che Guevara and Bob Marley rolled into one person, the Kalakuta Museum, which used to be the home of the multitalented musician before his demise, had promises of becoming an additional tourist attraction to the cosmopolitan centre of excellence called Lagos.
Born in October 1938 as Fela Anikulapo Ransome-Kuti, the Nigerian musician, composer, instrumentalist, traditionalist, activist and pioneer of the Afrobeat genre of music, his 59 years sojourn on earth was so eventful, inspiring and appreciative that even world superstars like Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Alicia Keys, Christine Amanpour, Charlize Theron and many others have been part of the Tony award winning critically acclaimed musical FELA which tells the story of the legendary singer and has been staged across the world.
The Kalakuta Museum was located at Gbemisola Street in Ikeja, Lagos State and was very close to the very popular Allen Avenue; a highbrow area of the city. On getting to the two storey white edifice which had an orange coloured inscription announcing the museum, the gates were locked. I gently knocked on the black gates and surveyed the exterior of the place; it was different from what it used to be. Noticeable structural works ahd really gone into the building to transform it from being the home of Fela to becoming a tourist site. A gateman appears and asked who I was looking for.
“I want to get into the museum,” I explained.
“Nobody dey,” came his response from inside. While trying to explain my mission, some people drove in and stepped out from the vehicle. After some brief introductions, a gentleman wearing an African print shirt extends his hands and said, “I am Theo Lawson and I am the architect of the museum. Welcome to Kalakuta.” I shook his hands and stepped forward to begin the tour of the home of Fela.
The first thing you noticed by the left on entering the premises is the tomb of Fela designed in the form of a pyramid sitting on a square base; it was made of marble and had abstract mosaic patterns with the inscription Fela 1938-1997. The shape of the grave was obviously symbolic and Mr. Lawson who would act as my curator offered some explanations.
“Fela was very Afrocentric and was into a lot of spiritualism. His band was called Egypt 80 and his thinking of Black Africa and Egypt was synonymous.”
The pyramid tomb was about pure geometry and symbolisms with the original design meant to have four columns representing all the elements that embody Fela.
“The first is Stone which depicts Fela’s orgin from Abeokuta; the second being wood which shows his naturalness then iron, representing his strength and the last, glass which radiates his transparency,” the curator explained.
Fela hailed from Abeokuta in Ogun State known for the famous Olumo Rock and was born into a middle class family of Rev. Israel Ransome-Kuti and Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti; a feminist activist in the anti-colonial era. He was to be influenced by his mother to become an activist but chose music to send his messages to the military governments in Nigeria; this got him into trouble with several occasions with several regimes in power. One of the songs he released in 1977 entitled Zombie was perceived as a direct attack on the military administration at that time. Soldiers from a nearby barracks destroyed his home at the Kalakuta Republic in Surelere leading Fela being viciously brutalized while his mother was thrown down from a window in the one storey building. The whole Kalakuta Republic was later acquired by the government.
We moved inside the entrance and came to the ground floor; it was a hall which I was told would serve as the coffee shop. Despite having been officially opened, the museum was still work in progress the curator informed. An elevator compartment was at the right with an abstract painting of a younger Fela on both sides of the elevator door with one of his many Pidgin English slogans, “Who no know go know,” written on the wall. The roof also had artistic expressions of Fela holding a microphone with his fists clenched and some of his messages boldly written there, one of which was prominent read; “If a man wants to enslave you forever, he will never tell you the truth about your forefathers.”
The tour of the museum, as the curator explained, is supposed to start at the reception where you get a ticket, go up the elevator to the top floor and walk through the stairs downwards.
“Fela always wanted to have an elevator so we designed the museum according to his wishes. It takes you to the top floor so you walk you way down,” Lawson said.
After viewing some of the singers enlarged album sleeves hanging on the wall, I was shown what would be the souvenir shop.
“This is where you can get his memorabilia, records, T-shirts and gift items associated with Fela,” the curator explained. The shop was locked but visible from the standpoint.
Since the elevator was not yet fully installed, I had the privilege of making my tour by stairs. The stairways were in a square form leading upstairs through a staircase elevation. Hanging on the stairs while making the way up were pictures of Fela’s family; you see his children and grandchildren. The picture of a much younger Seun, one of his sons who took over his father’s Egypt 80 band, is conspicuously visible. Other framed pictures showed some of his extended family members the curator explained. After two flights of stairs, we came to a room.
“This is Fela’s room,” the curator introduces as we got to the first floor, “this is the place he slept in until his death.”
The room had a transparent glass wall and looked quite colourful. I noticed a guitar hanging on the wall close to the see-through glass and was informed it was among the instruments Fela played with. But my interest was more on the room; it was very simple and looked very much African. His mattress, covered by a pink bedspread, lay on the right with four pillows or more positioned on the foam and on the floor. The curtain was made of a white Adire textile with abstract pattern designs.
Two wall hangers held his many colourful shirts above the mattress. On the floor, close to the glass wall, was his saxophone; the instrument with which he invented the Afrobeat jazz that has today become universal. On the left side of the room stood a small deep freezer, some few small tables held his books, a small table fan and leather wrap-around small bed seats and a bag popularly known in the Nigeria parlance as Ghana-Must-Go. Another wall hanger had some more colourful shirts with some clothes folded on top.
For a man that inspired a nation with his prophetic songs which were smash hits across Africa; was signed on to big music labels like Barclay/Polygram, Universal, EMI, JVC and others, his room was so interestingly humble in a simple way; it was not even a master bedroom. Not too flashy as would have been expected of a singer who had successful tours of the United States, Europe and even performed at the Giants Stadium in New Jersey with the likes of Carlos Santana, Bono and the Neville brothers.
“A lot of people say he is a philosopher, a prophet, son of a witch and all sorts but this will show you the humanity in him. He is a man of the people and was not after affluence even when he could have afforded that,” the curator tells me when he saw the confusing look on my face.
We continued.
Close to the room was his bathroom which looked very much ordinary; a bath tub, a toilet and some buckets with a brush on top of the sink. There was no gold plated taps or a shower. Adjacent to his room, towards the right was another room that showcased his clothes and foot wears. I counted 38 pairs of different colours; there were all performance shoes and it was immediately obvious Fela was a lover of shoes. Three mannequins wore his clothes which included his pants, his designer shirt and trousers as well as his winter coat. All the clothes displayed had accompanying pictures on the walls showing where a jovial Fela wore them; his smiling face on one of the pictures where he wore the winter coat in England showed that indeed Fela had swagger.
But Fela in his lifetime was known to wear only pants in his house which was now the Kalakuta museum and as I turned to make the enquiry, I saw them; three pants of different colours were displayed on the wall on three iron hangers. I made a quick imagination of him on one of the pants and smiled, it was the outfit I grew up to know him by in the newspapers.
The next room showed the activism side of the legend and contained newspaper covers dating back to the late 70s and early 80s announcing the many troubles and clashes Fela had with the military authorities in Nigeria.
Some of the covers, mostly from Daily Times, had headlines that read; “Where will she be buried? Govt. urged to compensate Fela; Govt. acquires Fela’s house; Fela Charged; Fela detention order lifted,” and others, showed he never had it easy with the government. During his lifetime, he was arrested severally, detained, brutalized and was jailed in 1984 by the General Muhamadu Buhari’s regime for a charge of smuggling currency where he was declared a Prisoner of Conscience by Amnesty International.
The next room I was ushered into showed his political ideology and exploits. In 1978 when the military regime headed by the then General Olusegun Obasanjo lifted a ban on political parties as part of the regime’s plan to transit power to civilians, Fela formed a political party called Movement of the People (M.O.P) and became the presidential candidate of the party in the 1979 elections. Though his exploits was refused, the room I was standing in was alive with M.O.P.
The manifesto of his party was spread across wooden wall boards and gave an insight into the vision Fela had for the country. Part of the manifesto which was planned to be a four year developmental plan for economic, cultural, social, political, technological and ideology reconstruction of Nigeria in particular and Africa in general were divided into two schematic phases from 1st November 1979-1st November 1981 and then 1st November 1981-1st November1983 read;
During the first phase, all educational projects and recommendations for speedy cultural and ideological re-orientation will be implemented through the importation of relevant books on authentic African history and the maximum use of the mass media. In line with the provisions of the FESTAC Colloquium, all agricultural, cultural, transport, industrial and architectural projects which require the construction of various structures shall have been implemented.
Reading those lines opened another side of the man to me; he wanted government to be truly for the people.
“Fela is a legend and this shows that anybody can be a legend any day if you are strong and true to yourself. He was a man of the people, he harboured people who were homeless and they at times put him into trouble,” the curator told me when he noticed me shaking my head in awe of the political thinking of the man. A manual typewriter sits on the middle of the documents being exhibited and I wondered if he used that to type his political views.
“It was donated by the family,” Lawson informed me.
On the other rooms hung black and white pictures of Fela on the piano, smiling inside one of his cars and also presenting a gift to a Caucasian lady; he wore just his pants. On the floor were also pictures taken from the film, Black Presidents as well as pictures of his famous dancers.
In order to make the museum self sustaining, five rooms were designed for lodging. When I asked the curator what kind of visitors could lodge in the rooms, he smiled and said, “It is for tourist, visitors and researchers. It would definitely not be short time.” We laughed at the joke and moved to the last floor of the building.
More pictures of his family hung on the wall showing Fela with his brothers, Prof. Olikoye Ransome Kuti who was once a Health minister in Nigeria and also of Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti. All are deceased now. Knowing Fela’s love for women and his wives, I wondered if the museum would be silent on that and before I could ask, it appeared on the top floor. Grinning mischievously while holding his sax, Fela and his record 27 wives came alive smiling at me; it was a black and white photograph taken up-close on a six foot by-four frame. You could get a rush of that moment in history when Fela took 27 of his dancers as wives. The curator needed not to tell me about that aspect of his life because it was legendary and made him the Abami Eda.
Lawson shows me the top floor where there would be a kitchenette and also a live band that would be playing for visitors to the museum. This is actually the floor the elevator brings you to start the tour.
As we made to go down, I asked the curator how soon the museum would start operating.
“It all depends on the funding. The initial fund for this museum was put at N60 million and the Lagos State Government gave us N40 million to commence but we are talking to other corporate organizations and sponsors and I believe by next year it would become operational,” he said. He made me know that since the museum was opened, the response has been phenomenal and several visitors both from Nigeria, Africa and other parts of the world have been visiting.
As I walked out of the Kalakuta Musuem, I was going with a feeling of the essence of the man called Fela; I saw how he lived, dressed, sang and also defended human rights through his songs. The visit took me into a spiritual understanding of who the legend Fela was.
