Fela Kuti's Live! with Ginger Baker: The Sound of a Movement Mid-Riot

Ben Bahr
2 days ago
7 min read

A Waxx Lyrical Record of the Month Deep Dive

Fela Kuti and Ginger Baker deep in discussion

Fela Kuti's Live! with Ginger Baker A Doorway Into Another World

Live albums don’t always rock my world. I mean, the point of live music—for me, at least—is the energy coming off the stage. The gestures of the performers. The heat of the people around you.

Live albums often feel like shadows—pale reflections of something you probably had to be there for. Decent approximations at best. Forgettable at worst.

But Live!, for some reason, is different. Somehow it doesn’t just capture the moment—it transports you to it. Somehow, you're right there in 1971, one of the hundred or so lucky enough to witness it go down. You're in the room, stepping into the storm. Not the kind that flattens you, but the kind that shakes the trees, stirs the air, and lets you know—something is happening here. Something human. Something urgent.

When Fela Kuti and his Africa ‘70 band stepped into Abbey Road Studios with Ginger Baker, they weren’t chasing polish. They were chasing fire. You hear it from the first seconds of ‘Let’s Start’—the groove locks in, the horns jab the air, and suddenly you’re inside the music.

The album doesn’t announce itself politely. It pulses. It chants. It sweats. It dares you to sit still.

Fela’s not just performing—he’s preaching, provoking, demanding something more from the listener. Live! isn’t a document of a performance. It’s a record of resistance, pressed onto wax. A flash of movement caught mid-revolution.

And if it sounds messy, chaotic, imperfect? Good. That’s how real things sound when they’re alive.

The Revolutionary Rhythm

By 1971, Fela Kuti wasn’t just making music—he was building a nation out of rhythm.

Born in Abeokuta, Nigeria in 1938, Fela studied classical trumpet in London before veering gloriously off course—into highlife, jazz, funk, and eventually something no one had heard before. Afrobeat wasn’t a sound he stumbled upon; it was something he forged but the real ignition point came during a trip to the U.S. in 1969. There, Fela brushed up against the Black Panthers and the fire of civil rights. He returned home changed—musically, politically, spiritually. Afrobeat took on a new form: part groove, mostly weapon.

It was a sound built on deep, hypnotic repetition—Yoruba rhythms tangled with James Brown’s funk, driven by drums that never quit and horns that shouted like headlines. But it was the message riding on top that made it dangerous. And Fela didn’t soften anything. He called out Nigeria’s military regime by name. He named names, mocked uniforms, and made his band dress like soldiers while playing protest anthems against actual soldiers. His Kalakuta Republic—part commune, part recording studio, part middle finger to authority—was raided constantly. He kept playing.

Then there’s Ginger Baker—a madman in his own right. Best known for drumming in Cream with Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce, Ginger was a jazz head, a rhythm chaser, and by all accounts, completely unhinged. He and Fela were from opposite worlds, but both ran on chaos and intuition. Fela didn’t suffer fools, but he respected anyone who could really play. And Ginger could play. So he got the call.

And Ginger—being Ginger—drove from Algeria to Lagos across the Sahara in a Range Rover to make it happen. No plane tickets. No logistics team. Just madness and a map, sand, cigarettes and blind determination. That’s the level of gravity Fela had. He said he wanted to learn the African rhythms at the source. Fela didn’t roll out a welcome mat, but he let him in. Maybe because he saw something of himself in Ginger—reckless, obsessive, ungovernable.

The Band, the Beat, and the White Ginger Wizard

Africa ‘70 was a shape-shifting beast. A deeply drilled, percussion-heavy engine capable of locking into a groove and riding it for half an hour without flinching. It was trance music with teeth—steady, cyclical, unstoppable.

At the centre of it all was Tony Allen, Fela’s rhythmic lieutenant and the co-architect of Afrobeat. His drumming wasn’t flashy; it was essential. Polyrhythmic, elastic, sly. He played across time, under time, behind time—never in a hurry, never out of control.

Fela once said, “Without Tony, there would be no Afrobeat.” And Tony knew it. He carried the pulse of the entire movement in his kit.

Around him, Africa ‘70 moved like muscle. The horn section didn’t just play parts—they shouted, provoked, answered back. The guitars kept a hypnotic loop running under everything, while the basslines carried the weight like a current beneath your feet.

Then Ginger Baker rolls in.

The white wizard from Cream. Fiery, unpredictable, battle-scarred. A jazz head with a rock god’s posture. He wasn’t there to sit in quietly—he came to collide.

Tony Allen later said of Ginger, “He understands African drumming... but he is not African. He’s not from the culture. But I liked playing with him.” It was a diplomatic way of saying: this was no casual jam session. This was a test.

And yet, it’s not a mess. You can hear the edges, the differences, but also the mutual respect. Ginger doesn’t try to lead. He reacts. Where Tony Allen is all swing and science, Ginger is fire and thunder. Together, they make the air move differently.

It shouldn’t work. But it does. And when it locks, it’s seismic.

A Recording Studio But Make It a Club

Despite its title, Live! wasn’t recorded in a sprawling concert arena—it unfolded in Studio Three at Abbey Road on July 25, 1971. And it felt less like a studio and more like a private party. EMI packed about 100 to 150 invited guests—journalists, friends, curious hangers-on—into the room. A bar was set up at the back, and microphones were positioned everywhere. Engineer Jeff Jarratt, producer Tony Clark, and the Abbey Road team were determined to keep it real. They captured the full thrum of the moment: the crackle in the air, the foot-tapping from the crowd, the sweat on the performances.

Jarratt later recalled how the music still felt “as fresh and compelling today as it did fifty years ago.” He’d worked with the Beatles and Pink Floyd, but this session had its own kind of fire. They used the same AKG D20 microphone they trusted for bass drums, pointed at the core of the groove. No overdubs. No punch-ins. Just the band, the room, and those cathedral ceilings that let the sound breathe and echo like a midnight Lagos club. So while Live! is technically a studio recording, it breathes like a concert. It’s proof that recording in a control room doesn’t have to mean sterilising everything. These engineers did more than capture a performance—they truly bottled lightning.

Track by Track

Let’s Start (7:42)

The opener doesn’t warm up—you get the full Fela treatment from the jump: sharp horn stabs, a groove that feels like it’s been looping forever, and Fela talking his talk with cheek, command, and fire. It’s a kind of manifesto disguised as a party starter. The band plays with muscle but no tension. Everything sounds locked but loose. Ginger Baker sits in, adding his flavour without crowding the beat—like he’s been studying this rhythm his whole life and knows not to overplay it.

For fans of: James Brown, Tony Allen, Budos Band.

Fun fact: This was one of Fela’s first tracks to use English as a political tool—equal parts message and invitation.

Black Man’s Cry (11:45)

Now the groove gets serious. Built on a repeating horn riff and call-and-response vocals, this track pulses with dignity and defiance. The tempo stays fixed, but the energy builds like a sermon. Fela’s voice is more urgent here—less showman, more spokesman. You can feel the rhythm section deep in your chest. Tony Allen and Ginger Baker somehow avoid stepping on each other, instead building a web of interlocking patterns that feels like a slow revolution grinding into gear.

For fans of: Gil Scott-Heron, The Roots, Sons of Kemet.

Fun fact: This song became a kind of spiritual slogan for Fela—he even wore it as a badge, referencing it repeatedly in interviews and performances throughout the 1970s.

Ye Ye De Smell (13:17)

The most sarcastic, swaggering cut on the album. 'Ye Ye' roughly translates to “nonsense,” and Fela uses the track to ridicule politicians and false prophets with rhythmic mockery. The groove is slick, playful, but biting. The call-and-response vocals from the band act as a kind of Greek chorus—egging Fela on while deepening the satire. Baker’s drumming here is more forward, more percussive, like he’s leaning into the ridicule. This is political funk with teeth.

For fans of: Antibalas, Talking Heads, The Meters.

Fun fact: Fela once claimed the song was written after watching a corrupt official stumble through a speech. “He talked rubbish, so we played it,” he said.

Egbe Mi O (Carry Me) (13:14)

The only song sung almost entirely in Yoruba, and the most spiritually resonant. The phrase “Egbe Mi O” means “carry me”—a plea for support, unity, survival. It’s a more devotional energy, but no less fierce.

Here, Fela leans into ancestral rhythms. The horns sway and the groove is about holding space. Ginger and Tony fall into something that sounds ceremonial. The crowd claps in time, as if they know this one’s not just a performance—it’s a ritual.

For fans of: Mulatu Astatke, Shabaka Hutchings, Mdou Moctar

Fun fact: This was often Fela’s closing track in live sets during this period—a moment of uplift and invocation after all the fire.

Why It Still Feels Like a Warning

Over 50 years on, Live! still feels like a warning shot. It’s not just the politics—it’s the refusal. The refusal to fall in line, to compromise, to play politely for Western ears. Fela’s voice is as urgent now as it was then. Perhaps even more so.

You can hear the blueprint for future waves of politically conscious music in every moment: from Public Enemy and Dead Prez to Kendrick Lamar and Burna Boy. And you can feel his groove echoing through funk, hip-hop, dub, post-punk, electronic, and far beyond.

What Kind of Blue is to stillness, Live! is to momentum—ever moving, ever provoked. It doesn’t settle, it doesn’t soothe, and it doesn’t stop. There’s nothing polite about it. It’s not a coffee-table jazz record or a toe-tapping funk compilation. It’s the sound of a man and a movement refusing to sit down.