SONG.REVIEWSNigerian bandleader who led Africa 70 and lived in the Kalakuta Republic compound in Lagos, which was attacked and burned by soldiers on February 18, 1977. His 1976 album Zombie satirized the Nigerian military and in 2025 became the first Nigerian album inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. A 2026 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Early Influence honoree.
Greatest of All Time!Fela Kuti's 'Zombie' compared Nigerian soldiers to mindless followers of orders; in February 1977 about a thousand soldiers attacked his compound, and his mother later died of the injuries she suffered there.
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