Finding Fela: My Strange Journey to Meet the AfroBeat King in Lagos [1983]

"Finding Fela" is my personal memoir of a journey to Lagos, Nigeria, to film the legendary African musician and political firebrand Fela Kuti, the "Black President." In 1983, Fela was Africa’s best-known performer: he mixed radical politics and pop music as they have rarely been mixed before. As a white man from Chicago, I experienced extreme culture shock and even got arrested and jailed. Eventually, I lived near Fela's commune, talked with him several times, became friends with many of his followers, and saw him perform at his Lagos club, The Shrine. Now deceased, Fela was the focus of a recent Broadway musical Fela!