Threads in Music is a new series exploring the links between artists.

‘Authority Stealing’ by Fela Kuti and Afrika 70

Authority Stealing (1980) was released shortly before most of Fela’s Afrika 70 (sometimes spelled Africa 70) band quit over a pay dispute. Fela reportedly used their touring fees to fund his presidential campaign. He then formed Egypt 80.

Fela always had multiple saxophone players; on this tune, he and Oyinade Adeniran play tenor, his eldest son Femi Kuti plays alto, Lekan Animashaun (commonly known as Baba Ani) plays baritone, and Mukoro Owieh plays second baritone. Femi had joined the band in 1978 and continued until leaving in 1986 to form Femi Kuti & The Positive Force. The saxophones combine for forceful, menacing riffs, heard in the opening. Then four-note phrases dovetail with the backing singers' repetitions of “Authority stealing”. The lyrics rally against the Nigerian authorities abusing their power. Fela compares them to armed robbers: “If gun steal eighty thousand Naira / Pen go steal two billion Naira.”

The song has some of the riveting call-and-response sections in Fela’s vast discography. From 9:55 the soloing sax anticipates the first verse’s vocal melodies. During these verses, the rhythm guitar and bass hit the One but the vocals rarely do, until the “Argument, argument” response.

‘Water No Get Enemy’ by D'Angelo, Femi Kuti + Macy Gray With Roy Hargrove, Nile Rodgers, The Soultronics + Positive Force

Red Hot + Riot (2002) was a compilation album paying tribute to Fela and part of a Red Hot Organization series of AID benefit projects. An array of artists, several of whom played with Fela, reworked Fela songs, sometimes staying close to the originals and other times coming up with notably different arrangements and new parts (including raps from artists like Talib Kweli and Common).

On ‘Water No Get Enemy’ Femi brought his alto sax, with his band in support. The band play the main horn riff in a lower register, but the rest of the track sounds more optimistic than Fela’s, with extra, heavily syncopated percussion and more laid-back vocals. As on the original, there’s plenty of time for a sax solo before the vocals, and Femi puts all his energy into alternately cheery and bluesy riffs. A guitar then rallies through scratchy, wah-drenched chords, briefly taking centre stage, which was a rarity in Fela’s music where the guitars were almost exclusively support instruments. Macy Gray, Femi and D'Angelo trade lines and sometimes harmonise, their voices melding seamlessly.

‘Sweet Baby’ by Macy Gray

Macy Gray’s the id (2001) starts with four funky tracks before slowing down and smoothing out with ‘Sweet Baby’. In the background of the lush arrangement with strings and organ (including that of Billy Preston), John Frusciante adds subtle, percussive guitar chords. Listen from 1:05 and his muted chord which seems to foreshadow the drum roll, leading to the first sweet chorus. 

Though Erykah Badu (another fan of Fela) joins Gray on vocals, her role is similarly supportive, adding floaty “Doo, doo-doo”s to the chorus. Rick Rubin (longtime producer of Frusciante in the Red Hot Chili Peppers) is credited with the vocal arrangement, along with Badu (a very unusual credit for Rubin).

‘Dust’ by Ataxia

Frusciante, of Chili Peppers fame, had a short-lived side project named Ataxia, with Josh Klinghoffer (a future Chili Pepper, in between two Frusciante stints) on drums, and Joe Lally on bass. Originally Frusciante and Klinghoffer wanted Lally to join them playing shows of Frusciante’s solo material. Lally says he’s not a quick learner of other people’s music, so they decided to write new songs. Lally’s repetitive, hypnotic basslines form a foundation for Ataxia’s lengthy, jammy improvisations, stretching over 12 minutes in the case of ‘Montreal’. Lally says, “if you were gonna leave me alone to play music, my goal was to play one bass line in a song. I wouldn’t necessarily choose to play them for 10 minutes… but that is just a project of what we were trying to do – trying to write music to play a show and trying to fill up an hours worth of playing!”

On ‘Dust’, from Automatic Writing (2004), Lally plays a riff that hints at the moodiness that’s prevalent through the album’s 44 minutes. Klinghoffer’s drumming is relentless, only occasionally consistent with a smashed snare on the two and four before a drum roll sets up the next burst of energy from Frusciante. In the words of Frusciante, “If you don't care about song structure, and you want powerful music with f**ked-up guitar-playing and songs that are really long, this record is the one.” Though the song structures may be free, the group consciously or unconsciously found interesting arrangements. From 4:10, there’s a brief chance to catch your breath after some particularly electricifying guitar playing, with the song suddenly sounding spacious, which makes Frusciante’s almost deranged-sounding riff more thrilling when it returns.

‘That Thang’ by The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis

Anthony Pirog, Brendan Canty, and Lally formed the instrumental trio The Messthetics, whose sound has been neatly described as “jazz punk jam”. They joined saxophonist James Brandon Lewis for a self-titled LP in 2024. The album mixes free improvisation with Lally and Canty’s fidgety, adventurous rhythms, and in the case of ‘That Thang’, a snarling, funky riff. Brandon Lewis’s sax joins Lally’s bass in the main melody.

After the first minute, Pirog takes the main melody and runs wild with it, screeching and wailing unpredictably, before leading back to home. Then it’s Brandon Lewis’s turn to solo, and from 1:51 he plays a couple of long, persistent lines that rival Lally’s bass for stankface inspiration.

‘Furniture’ by Fugazi

The band Lally and Canty are best known for, Fugazi, stood out in DC’s hardcore scene for their dub and funk-influenced basslines, heavy guitar riffs, and creative song structures. On ‘Furniture’, the title track of a 2001 EP, Lally’s bass is the lead instrument during verses, before dual guitars play the same melody (in the manner of Brandon Lewis’s sax, perhaps inspiring that tune). That section where the three instruments play the same riff functions as a wordless chorus, brilliantly led up to by Ian MacKaye’s furious lines (“Yeah, bullshit!”, “How ’bout now?”).

The song flip flops between a bare bones arrangement (at one point only MacKaye’s ominous vocal and Brendan Canty’s drums) and a full band sound, giving that wordless chorus extra impact. MacKaye seems to reference that wordlessness with the repeated line, “This is a song with no words.” Or perhaps he’s referencing the lack of original thoughts of the “you” he’s addressing: “How many times have you felt like a bookcase / Sitting in a living room gathering dust / Full of thoughts already written?”