Fela Kuti
Sorrow Tears and Blood

Release Date: 1977 | Tracklist

On February 18, 1977, Nigerian soldiers invaded the compound where Fela Kuti, his wives and children, musicians and their families lived and made their music. The Nigerian government, incensed and repeatedly embarrassed by the flagrant and continued defiance shown by Kuti throughout his career had finally decided to take drastic action. The resulting raid would end with Fela badly beaten, his compound burned to the ground, his recording equipment destroyed, and his mother in a coma from which she would not recover.

Few people would have it in them to even continue a musical career after such a blow, fewer still would be able to renew their antiestablishment attacks with such renewed fury as Fela did. If Sorrow Tears and Blood doesn’t quite stand with Zombie or Expensive Shit, it certainly isn’t because of the subject matter, as Fela reveals the fruit of the bloody, cowardly work of the government stooges he’d so pointedly castigated in his previous work with renewed indignation. Where other albums would be more likely to open with a roaring dance number, Sorrow, Tears and Blood is a thundering, accusatory account of the raid is carried by an almost plodding funk rhythm that doesn’t fall prey to any sense of grief and lamentation, but bears a sense of steely defiance and steadfast determination. This isn’t the exuberant, defiant energy of Expensive Shit, or the ferocious attack of Zombie, this is the anthem of a man who has refused to be destroyed, who has made his voice and music a weapon against corruption and injustice. If the music on the title track isn’t always as gripping as the words and the idea behind them, it’s perhaps because the words themselves are meant to take center stage; where before the music had been the vehicle of Fela’s political expression, the rhythmic conduit to the hearts of listeners in Nigeria and beyond, here it’s the backdrop to Fela’s catalogue of injustice. This is borne out by the instrumental powerhouse that is Colonial Mentality, a track that finds Fela’s backing band in rare form. The horns and saxophones sinuously weave themselves around the tight, mid-tempo funk groove, rising here and there from the mélange to burst into brash, glorious solos, while Fela himself takes a backseat, only appearing on about 5 minutes of the track’s 13 minute length to denounce the colonialist mindset that would deny the place of African culture in the minds of Africans. While Fela’s appearance is typically scathing, the relative brevity of his part in favor of the backing band is as much to say, that even though Fela had come through his experience a survivor, battered and undaunted in his commitment to his vision for his country and people, he still recognized that the source of his strength as a voice speaking to corruption and tyranny was still the music that carried his words to dance halls and radio waves across Africa.

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