Afrobeat No Go Die! by the Time Fela Anikulapo Kuti Was Laid to Rest in Front of His House at Kalakuta, Lagos, in 1997, He Had Recorded 77 Albums, Married 27 Wives, Made over 200 Court Appearances and Been Harassed, Beaten, Tortured and Jailed. A New Book, Fela: Kalakuta Notes, Celebrating His Life, Has Just Been Published, Written by John Collins. Stephen Williams Pays Homage to the Great Man

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FELA ANIKULAPO KUTI'S fearless and indefatigable spirit makes him a true African hero. He was one of the greatest and most influential pop musicians of the 20th century. Born into a middle-class family in 1935, Fela's father was an ultra-conservative reverend, Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, an ordained minister, grammar school headmaster and the first president of the Nigerian Union of Teachers. By contrast, Fela's mother, Funmilayo, was something of a political firebrand--an early organiser against British colonialism, the first woman to hold a driver's licence in Nigeria, and a leader of the country's nascent socialist-nationalist and suffragette campaigns. As an activist, she travelled to Russia, and also to China where she met Chairman Mao Zedong.

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Fela's parents, wanting what all middle-class Nigerian parents aspired to for their children, no matter what their political inclinations--that they qualify for a professional career--decided to send him to London to study medicine. But he had other plans.

He dropped out of medical school and registered at a college of music, a path more usually associated with pursuing a career in classical music. While in London, he married …