Fela Kuti's Controversial Song "Zombie"

The song that I chose to analyze was Fela Kuti’s Zombie, the title track to his album which was released in 1977 and contains four controversial songs in Fela’s Afrobeat style. Both the song and the album criticize the Nigerian government, using the zombie in the song as a metaphor for the Nigerian armed forces. Although before he was successful with Koola Lobitos, Fela’s first band in London, he admits to not being politically minded at all, “I made my comment as a citizen. I was just another musician playing with Koola Lobidos and singing love songs, songs about rain… What did I know?” After experiencing the Black Power movement when he lived in America in the 1960s, Fela Kuti was deported back to Nigeria due to his political affiliations ands started the band/renamed the band to “Afrika 70” with whom he produced Zombie. The song portrays the Nigerian army as faceless and senseless, an army of zombies mindlessly following orders, “Zombie no go think, unless you tell am to think.” Fela’s mockery of the Nigerian army with its upbeat rhythms and almost taunting vocals are tools used in the song to raise support against the government, taunting the military to its breaking point. After its release, the song led to a swift revenge by the Nigerian armed forces when they wrecked the compound Fela had established in Nigeria. During the attack Fela was severely beaten and his mother was thrown out of a window which ultimately killed her. Fela Kuti’s multiple albums with “Afrika 70” contain confrontational and controversial songs towards the Nigerian government and the Nigerian army. After being banned from Nigeria because of Zombie, Fela Kuti formed his political group MOP or Movement of the People, never resting and touring non-stop spreading his message. Zombie itself holds to be one of the most confrontational pieces in music and Fela’s message resounds ultimately in his multiple albums.