Oh, Manchester, So Much To Answer For

revelation time: fela kuti was the motherfucking bomb. let me put it this way: the man funked harder than james brown and george clinton. of course, since I do so much of this back-asswards, I came to this realization via fela's son femi kuti (whose own band, positive energy, is pretty damned tight, if occasionally too polite), and the new fela tribute, red hot + riot. yup, the red hot organization is still around, still doing important work, and still making damned good records (you can see all of them here). d'angelo, macy gray, res, common, kelis, talib kweli, and me'shell ndegeocello are among those making appearances. uncut funk from where it all began, africa (in fela's case, nigeria). so I start downloading some tracks from the best best of fela kuti (2000), and they are absolutely shit-hot. fela invented afrobeat. he's a man among men. buy everything by him you can find (mca reissued most of his records as two-for-ones in the last two years). now.