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Friday Funk #39 – ‘Yellow Fever’ by Fela Kuti & Afrika 70
Friday Funk #39 – ‘Yellow Fever’ by Fela Kuti & Afrika 70
Friday Funk #39 – ‘Yellow Fever’ by Fela Kuti & Afrika 70
Part 5 of our Further Explorations of Funk made the case that ‘Zombie’ (1976) was the closest Fela Kuti ever got to 1970s James Brown funk. Fela later used the One more unpredictability; his arrangements became larger, his compositions lengthier and more elaborate on tracks like ‘Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense’ and ‘O.D.O.O.’ Another contender for the funkiest Fela song may be ‘Yellow Fever’, released the same year as ‘Zombie’.
The kick drum, guitar, and bass all hit the One, and during the motif, the horns join in on that beat as well. We start with a single-note melody line from one of the guitars, then the bass, then the rhythm guitar. Then Tony Allen’s drums and Isaac Olaleye’s maracas join in.
Fela’s keyboards are free to wander over the web of polyrhythms – the One’s taken care of, and so is a whole lot besides: Allen’s hi-hat is constant, itchy-feet energy and his snare arrives on unpredictable offbeats, as well as the slightly more predictable last eighth note in each measure (the last ‘and’ in “one-and-two-and-three-and-four”), which sets up our return to the One.
One major difference between Brown’s funk and ‘Yellow Fever’ is that Fela and his band jam for over 7 minutes until the first vocal. Fela’s songs often take inspiration from the jazz format of head-solo-head. ‘Head’ in jazz refers to the motif, or the main riff, which functions a little like the chorus in a pop song. In ‘Yellow Fever’, we’re introduced to the head, the main horn riff, after a minute and a half. This motif is followed by a kind of call-and-response among the horns, with the baritone sax of Lekan Animashaun (commonly known as Baba Ani) playing ominous two-note replies, before joining in with the motif on its return.
In his essay ‘Make It Funky: Fela Kuti, James Brown and the Invention of Afrobeat’, Alexander Stewart notated several Fela and Brown drum patterns (‘Yellow Fever’ and all of the other chosen Fela tracks feature Tony Allen on drums). Stewart showed the similarity in the vast majority of Allen and Brown’s drummers in almost always playing the kick drum on the One. Allen used his kick more than Brown’s drummers (most famously Jabo Starks and Clyde Stubblefield), which “seems reflective of traditional West African practices in which the largest drum is often the lead drum”, writes Stewart.
Another difference was the “more balanced syncopation (occurring in Allen’s grooves in the first half of the measure as well as the second half)”. Yellow Fever, though, is more similar to Brown’s grooves, in saving the syncopation for the second half of the measure. However, Allen plays his kick drum on not just the One but also on the sixteenth note immediately after it. A sixteenth note is the “e” in “One-e-and-a-two”. In other words, it comes extremely quickly after the One. None of the twelve Brown songs that Stewart discusses feature a kick drum on this offbeat (and only two feature a snare hit), whereas each of the nine Fela tracks feature either a kick or snare here.
When Fela does start singing, he repeats a line four times: “Different different fever na him dey” before one of many vocal call-and-response sections starts. Fela criticises the practice of Nigerian women bleaching their skin to make it appear lighter. Aside from the societal or political content of his lyrics, the song is a great example of his unique feel for vowel sounds. It’s right there from the start of the lyrics, when the ‘ey’ sound rings out at the end of the line. The sound is repeated in many of the backing singers responses (“He dey”, “You say”).
The final section of the song features some wild and brilliantly energetic horn playing. Tunde Williams’ trumpet sets up replies from the sax players (Fela and Animashaun). The horn interplay is not dissimilar to the vocal call-and-response. As Aaron Leitko wrote of Fela’s music, it is “constantly moving and mutating, but [it] also conveys a sense of stasis. Unlike jazz, the songs aren’t shaped by chord changes or modulations, but the gradual accumulation and subtraction of melodic and rhythmic gestures.”
The guitars, relentlessly repetitive, of ‘Yellow Fever’ indeed feature no chord changes or modulations, but are like a steady boat somehow navigating a wild river: the horns of different tones, registers, and melodies are like animals flitting in and out, one second seeming like they want a ride and the next jumping off in unexpected directions.
Part 5 of our Further Explorations of Funk made the case that ‘Zombie’ (1976) was the closest Fela Kuti ever got to 1970s James Brown funk. Fela later used the One more unpredictability; his arrangements became larger, his compositions lengthier and more elaborate on tracks like ‘Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense’ and ‘O.D.O.O.’ Another contender for the funkiest Fela song may be ‘Yellow Fever’, released the same year as ‘Zombie’.
The kick drum, guitar, and bass all hit the One, and during the motif, the horns join in on that beat as well. We start with a single-note melody line from one of the guitars, then the bass, then the rhythm guitar. Then Tony Allen’s drums and Isaac Olaleye’s maracas join in.
Fela’s keyboards are free to wander over the web of polyrhythms – the One’s taken care of, and so is a whole lot besides: Allen’s hi-hat is constant, itchy-feet energy and his snare arrives on unpredictable offbeats, as well as the slightly more predictable last eighth note in each measure (the last ‘and’ in “one-and-two-and-three-and-four”), which sets up our return to the One.
One major difference between Brown’s funk and ‘Yellow Fever’ is that Fela and his band jam for over 7 minutes until the first vocal. Fela’s songs often take inspiration from the jazz format of head-solo-head. ‘Head’ in jazz refers to the motif, or the main riff, which functions a little like the chorus in a pop song. In ‘Yellow Fever’, we’re introduced to the head, the main horn riff, after a minute and a half. This motif is followed by a kind of call-and-response among the horns, with the baritone sax of Lekan Animashaun (commonly known as Baba Ani) playing ominous two-note replies, before joining in with the motif on its return.
In his essay ‘Make It Funky: Fela Kuti, James Brown and the Invention of Afrobeat’, Alexander Stewart notated several Fela and Brown drum patterns (‘Yellow Fever’ and all of the other chosen Fela tracks feature Tony Allen on drums). Stewart showed the similarity in the vast majority of Allen and Brown’s drummers in almost always playing the kick drum on the One. Allen used his kick more than Brown’s drummers (most famously Jabo Starks and Clyde Stubblefield), which “seems reflective of traditional West African practices in which the largest drum is often the lead drum”, writes Stewart.
Another difference was the “more balanced syncopation (occurring in Allen’s grooves in the first half of the measure as well as the second half)”. Yellow Fever, though, is more similar to Brown’s grooves, in saving the syncopation for the second half of the measure. However, Allen plays his kick drum on not just the One but also on the sixteenth note immediately after it. A sixteenth note is the “e” in “One-e-and-a-two”. In other words, it comes extremely quickly after the One. None of the twelve Brown songs that Stewart discusses feature a kick drum on this offbeat (and only two feature a snare hit), whereas each of the nine Fela tracks feature either a kick or snare here.
When Fela does start singing, he repeats a line four times: “Different different fever na him dey” before one of many vocal call-and-response sections starts. Fela criticises the practice of Nigerian women bleaching their skin to make it appear lighter. Aside from the societal or political content of his lyrics, the song is a great example of his unique feel for vowel sounds. It’s right there from the start of the lyrics, when the ‘ey’ sound rings out at the end of the line. The sound is repeated in many of the backing singers responses (“He dey”, “You say”).
The final section of the song features some wild and brilliantly energetic horn playing. Tunde Williams’ trumpet sets up replies from the sax players (Fela and Animashaun). The horn interplay is not dissimilar to the vocal call-and-response. As Aaron Leitko wrote of Fela’s music, it is “constantly moving and mutating, but [it] also conveys a sense of stasis. Unlike jazz, the songs aren’t shaped by chord changes or modulations, but the gradual accumulation and subtraction of melodic and rhythmic gestures.”
The guitars, relentlessly repetitive, of ‘Yellow Fever’ indeed feature no chord changes or modulations, but are like a steady boat somehow navigating a wild river: the horns of different tones, registers, and melodies are like animals flitting in and out, one second seeming like they want a ride and the next jumping off in unexpected directions.
Part 5 of our Further Explorations of Funk made the case that ‘Zombie’ (1976) was the closest Fela Kuti ever got to 1970s James Brown funk. Fela later used the One more unpredictability; his arrangements became larger, his compositions lengthier and more elaborate on tracks like ‘Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense’ and ‘O.D.O.O.’ Another contender for the funkiest Fela song may be ‘Yellow Fever’, released the same year as ‘Zombie’.
The kick drum, guitar, and bass all hit the One, and during the motif, the horns join in on that beat as well. We start with a single-note melody line from one of the guitars, then the bass, then the rhythm guitar. Then Tony Allen’s drums and Isaac Olaleye’s maracas join in.
Fela’s keyboards are free to wander over the web of polyrhythms – the One’s taken care of, and so is a whole lot besides: Allen’s hi-hat is constant, itchy-feet energy and his snare arrives on unpredictable offbeats, as well as the slightly more predictable last eighth note in each measure (the last ‘and’ in “one-and-two-and-three-and-four”), which sets up our return to the One.
One major difference between Brown’s funk and ‘Yellow Fever’ is that Fela and his band jam for over 7 minutes until the first vocal. Fela’s songs often take inspiration from the jazz format of head-solo-head. ‘Head’ in jazz refers to the motif, or the main riff, which functions a little like the chorus in a pop song. In ‘Yellow Fever’, we’re introduced to the head, the main horn riff, after a minute and a half. This motif is followed by a kind of call-and-response among the horns, with the baritone sax of Lekan Animashaun (commonly known as Baba Ani) playing ominous two-note replies, before joining in with the motif on its return.
In his essay ‘Make It Funky: Fela Kuti, James Brown and the Invention of Afrobeat’, Alexander Stewart notated several Fela and Brown drum patterns (‘Yellow Fever’ and all of the other chosen Fela tracks feature Tony Allen on drums). Stewart showed the similarity in the vast majority of Allen and Brown’s drummers in almost always playing the kick drum on the One. Allen used his kick more than Brown’s drummers (most famously Jabo Starks and Clyde Stubblefield), which “seems reflective of traditional West African practices in which the largest drum is often the lead drum”, writes Stewart.
Another difference was the “more balanced syncopation (occurring in Allen’s grooves in the first half of the measure as well as the second half)”. Yellow Fever, though, is more similar to Brown’s grooves, in saving the syncopation for the second half of the measure. However, Allen plays his kick drum on not just the One but also on the sixteenth note immediately after it. A sixteenth note is the “e” in “One-e-and-a-two”. In other words, it comes extremely quickly after the One. None of the twelve Brown songs that Stewart discusses feature a kick drum on this offbeat (and only two feature a snare hit), whereas each of the nine Fela tracks feature either a kick or snare here.
When Fela does start singing, he repeats a line four times: “Different different fever na him dey” before one of many vocal call-and-response sections starts. Fela criticises the practice of Nigerian women bleaching their skin to make it appear lighter. Aside from the societal or political content of his lyrics, the song is a great example of his unique feel for vowel sounds. It’s right there from the start of the lyrics, when the ‘ey’ sound rings out at the end of the line. The sound is repeated in many of the backing singers responses (“He dey”, “You say”).
The final section of the song features some wild and brilliantly energetic horn playing. Tunde Williams’ trumpet sets up replies from the sax players (Fela and Animashaun). The horn interplay is not dissimilar to the vocal call-and-response. As Aaron Leitko wrote of Fela’s music, it is “constantly moving and mutating, but [it] also conveys a sense of stasis. Unlike jazz, the songs aren’t shaped by chord changes or modulations, but the gradual accumulation and subtraction of melodic and rhythmic gestures.”
The guitars, relentlessly repetitive, of ‘Yellow Fever’ indeed feature no chord changes or modulations, but are like a steady boat somehow navigating a wild river: the horns of different tones, registers, and melodies are like animals flitting in and out, one second seeming like they want a ride and the next jumping off in unexpected directions.