Wyclef Jean

. He also expressed views that could be considered sexist. In 2005, Jean earned a Golden Globe for his track entitled "Million Voices" featured on the soundtrack to the film Hotel Rwanda. Though not part of African culture, it should be noted though that Fela was very liberal when it came to sex, as he potrayed in some of his songs, like Open and Close. A freewheeling album that is something of a return to his Caribbean roots, most of the songs on the album are in his native language of Haitian Creole or Kreyòl. This may have contributed to his ultimate death of complications from AIDS. In 2004, he released his fifth album, entitled Sak Pasé Presents: Welcome to Haiti (Creole 101) (released in the United States by Koch Records). The African culture he believed in also included having many wives (polygamy) and the Kalakuta Republic was formed in part as a polygamist colony.

His fourth album was The Preacher's Son, an album that Wyclef considered a continuation of his first album, Carnival. He was also a social commentator, and criticized his fellow Africans (especially the upper class) for betraying traditional African culture. Jean's third album, Masquerade, was released in 2002 and sold well, though critics frequently panned it. He was a fierce supporter of human rights, and many of his songs are direct attacks against dictatorships, specifically the militaristic governments of Nigeria in the 1970s and 1980s. The critical reception was mixed, with many calling the album scattershot and too far-ranging to be cohesive. He was also a supporter of Pan-Africanism and socialism, and called for a united, democratic African republic. Blige. The American Black Power movement influenced Fela's political views.

Jean's second solo album was The Ecleftic: 2 Sides II a Book, recorded with guests Youssou N'Dour, Earth, Wind & Fire, Kenny Rogers, The Rock and Mary J. Fela was known for his showmanship, and his concerts were often quite outlandish and wild. The Fugees remained in limbo during this time, with the follow-up to The Score being continually postponed as all three members cultivated solo careers. Fela refused to perform songs again after he had already recorded them, which also hindered his popularity outside Africa. Jean went on to work with artists including Santana, Tevin Campbell, Cypress Hill, Bounty Killer, Whitney Houston, Destiny's Child, Sublime, Simply Red, Mya, Sinéad O'Connor, Kimberly Scott, Mick Jagger, Canibus, The Black Eyed Peas and Eric Benét. Fela's main instruments were the saxophone and the keyboards but he also played the trumpet, horn, guitar and made the occasional drum solo. The album was a major hit, as were two singles: "We Trying to Stay Alive" (adapted from The Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive") and "Gone Til November" (recorded with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra). His songs were mostly sung in Nigerian pidgin English, although he did also perform a few songs in the Yoruba language.

The album's guests included Hill and Pras along with Jean's siblings, the I Threes (back-up vocals for Bob Marley), Neville Brothers and Celia Cruz. This was one of many reasons that his music never reached a substantial degree of popularity outside of Africa. Jean soon announced plans to begin a solo career with 1997's Wyclef Jean Presents the Carnival Featuring the Refugee All-Stars (more typically called simply The Carnival). Fela's songs were almost always over ten minutes in length, some reaching the twenty or even thirty minute marks. Their eclectic follow-up, The Score, however, sold over 17 million copies worldwide and turned the trio into international superstars. This is a common technique in African and African-influenced musical styles, and can be seen in funk and hip-hop. The Fugees signed to Ruffhouse Records and released their debut, Blunted on Reality, but the album was panned and sold poorly. The "endless groove" was also used, in which a base rhythm of drums, muted guitar, and bass guitar are repeated throughout the song.

In 1987, Jean, his cousin Prakazrel Michel (Pras) and his classmate, Lauryn Hill, formed a group called the Tranzlator Crew before becoming The Fugees. Wyclef worked as a cabdriver. Therefore it was characterized by having African style percussion, vocals, and musical structure, along with jazzy horn sections. Born in Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti, Jean moved to Brooklyn when he was nine, then to New Jersey, where he began playing the guitar and studying jazz in high school. The musical style performed by Fela Kuti was called Afrobeat, which was essentially a fusion of jazz and West African highlife. Wyclef Jean (born October 17, 1972) is a Haitian-born rapper, producer and former member of the superstar hip hop trio The Fugees, known now for a series of high-profile hit singles. Later, it was revealed that he succumbed to AIDS-related heart failure. Clef Records Website (http://www.clefrecords.com). It was announced that he died on August 2, 1997 in Lagos, Nigeria.

J Records Website (http://www.jrecords.com). This led to rumors that he was suffering from an illness that he was refusing treatment for. Sak Pase Records Website (http://www.sakpaserecords.net). His album output slowed in the 1990s, and eventually he stopped releasing albums altogether. Official Website (http://www.wyclef.com). Once again, Fela continued to release albums with Egypt 80, made a number of successful tours of the United States and Europe and also continued to be politically active. 2004 Sak Pasé Presents: Creole 101 (Welcome to Haiti). On Fela's release he divorced his twelve remaining wives.

2003 The Preacher's Son. After twenty months, the regime changed once again and Fela was released from prison. 2002 Masquerade. In 1983 he again ran for President but was again attacked by police, who threw him in prison on a dubious charge of currency smuggling. 2000 The Ecleftic: 2 Sides II a Book. At this time, Fela created a new band called "Egypt 80" and continued to record albums and tour the country. 1997 Wyclef Jean Presents The Carnival Featuring the Refugee All-Stars. In 1979 he put himself forward for President in Nigeria's first elections for more than a decade but his candidature was refused.

He formed his own political party, which he called "Movement of the People". Despite the massive setbacks, Fela was determined to come back. The second was at the Berlin Festival after which most of Fela's musicians deserted him, due to rumors that Fela was planning to use the entirety of the proceeds to fund his presidential campaign. The year was also marked by two notorious concerts, the first in Accra in which riots broke out during the song Zombie which led to Fela being banned from entering Ghana.

In 1978 Fela married twenty seven women, many of whom were his dancers and singers to mark the anniversary of the attack on the Kalakuta Republic. Fela and his band then took residence in Crossroads Hotel as the Shrine had been destroyed along with his commune. Fela's response to the attack was to deliver his mother's coffin to an army barrack and write two songs, Coffin for Head of State and Unknown Soldier referencing the official inquiry which claimed the commune had been destroyed by an unknown soldier. Fela claimed that he would have been killed if it were not for the intervention of a commanding officer as he was being beaten.

The Kalakuta Republic was burned, and Fela's studio, instruments, and master tapes were destroyed. Fela was severely beaten, and his elderly mother was thrown from a window, causing fatal injuries. In one raid, one thousand soldiers attacked the commune. The record was a smash hit with the people and infuriated the government, setting off vicious attacks against the Kalakuta Republic.

In 1977 Fela and Africa 70 released the hit album Zombie, a scathing attack on Nigerian soldiers which used the "zombie" metaphor to describe the methods of the Nigerian military. He then recounted this tale in his release Expensive Shit. Fela enlisted the help of his prison mates and gave the police someone else's feces, and Fela was freed. In response, the police took him into custody and waited to examine his feces.

He became wise to this and swallowed the joint. In 1974 the police arrived with a search warrant and a cannabis joint, which they had intended to plant on Fela. However, it was also very unpopular with the ruling government, and raids on the Kalakuta Republic were frequent. Fela's music became very popular among the Nigerian public.

The recordings continued, and the music became more politically motivated. Fela also changed his middle name to "Anikulapo" (meaning "he who carries death in his pouch"), stating that his original middle name of Ransome was a slave name. Fela set up a nightclub in the Empire Hotel in which he performed in regularly first named the Afro-Spot and then the Shrine. He then formed the Kalakuta Republic, a commune, a recording studio and a home for many connected to the band which he later declared independent from the Nigerian state.

Fela and his band, renamed "Africa 70", then returned to Nigeria. The band then performed a quick recording session in Los Angeles, which would later be released as "The '69 Los Angeles Sessions". Soon, the Immigration and Naturalization Service were tipped off by a promoter that Fela and his band were in the US without work permits. While there, Fela discovered the black power movement through Sandra Isodere a friend of the Black Panther Party, which would heavily influence his music and political views and renamed the band "Nigeria 70".

In 1963 Fela moved back to Nigeria, re-formed Koola Lobitos and trained as a radio producer for Nigerian Broadcasting. In 1969 Fela took the band to the United States. In 1961 Fela married his first wife Remi with whom he would have three children (Femi, Yeni and Sola). The style was a fusion of American jazz with West African highlife. While there, he formed the band Koola Lobitos, playing a style of music Fela called Afrobeat.

His parents sent him to London in 1958 with the intention of having him study medicine, but he decided to study music instead at the Trinity College of Music. His mother, Funmilayo, was a feminist active in the anti-colonial movement and his father Israel was the first president of the Nigerian Union Of Teachers. Fela Kuti was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria to a middle-class family. Olufela Olusegen Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, October 15, 1938 - August 2, 1997), or simply "Fela", was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, pioneer of Afrobeat music, human rights activist and political maverick.

Fela Anikulapo Kuti (b. Fela Live! Fela Anikulapo-Kuti and the Egypt 80 Band 1981, Recorded Live At Glastonbury, England. Fela In Concert 1981. Stephane tchal-Gadjieff & Jean Jacques Flori, Music Is The Weapon 1982, reissued in 2002 by Universal.

Tejumola Olaniyan, Arrest the Music! Fela and his rebel art and politics, Indiana University Press, 2004. Various, Black President: The Art & Legacy of Fela Anikulapo Kuti, edited by Trevor Schoonmaker, 2003. Various, Fela: From West Africa to West Broadway, edited by Trevor Schoonmaker, 2003. Sola Olorunyomi, Afrobeat: Fela and the Imagined Continent, Africa World Press, 2002.

Mabinuori Kayode Idowu, Fela, le combattant, Bordeaux (France), Le Castor Astral, 2002. Veal, Fela: The Life of an African Musical Icon, Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1997. Michael E.