Finding Fela

This documentary about the late Nigerian musician Fela Kuti was initiated when a Broadway musical meant to celebrate his music started production. The musical Fela! had premiere in 2010, with no less than Jay Z and Will Smith as producers, and has since then been repeatedly put up and received a world tour.

The work at the musical is being shown as a narrative backdrop, including the crew trying to interpret Fela´s often abstract lyrics. With about 70 releases behind Fela, and plenty of well documented live recordings, it was a lot for the crew to put themselves into. With this deep dive, we are getting closer to the man and myth of Fele Kuti, given an extensively introduction to his childhood and radicalization, dating back to the formative years in Nigeria. Fela has a prominent origin, with a mother active in the feminist movement and a father who was the principal of a Christian school. This melting plot of cultural, political and religious impressions was the very framework that formed the musician and activist Fela Kuti. Though it was the discovery of jazz that really pointed him into new musical tracks, which he continued into the then prevailing Nigerian pop music highlife, interspersed with vibes from the primal soul package from James Brown. The result was the birth of a new music genre – afrobeat!

Finding Fela is an informative documentary about a man who lived an exciting and turbulent life. He was in constant conflict with the Nigerian authorities, attacked and imprisioned several times, and therefor lost many of his close ones along the way. But Fela stood his ground and delivered his message being radically, hedonistic, progressive... and incredibly catchy! Director Alex Gibney has done a marvelous job with the archival work, showing wild live performances with Fela Kuti in all his megalomaniacal glory in the 70s. Colorful, sexy and danceable madness!

Alex Gibney (b. 1953) is an productive director. Socio political themes recur, as in: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005), We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks (2013) and Scientologi and the Prison of Belief (2015), also in music documentaries as Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown (2014) and Finding Fela (2014).

In partnership with: Norwegian Council for Africa