Zombie

Things I learned today:

I can sometimes enjoy Afrobeat.

The term 'World Music' is now widely considered dated and racist.

This guy married 27 women in one day.

I was also going to throw in a joke about "my horn section" but I decided against it.

There's apparently lots of different versions of this floating around...the one I heard had just two songs, Zombie and Mr Follow Follow. But those two songs left me wanting more! The titular track, especially, has a killer groove. It's pretty decent stuff, my first introduction to afrobeat or anything adjacent to it. Imagine hearing this and wanting to raid the guy's commune and kill his mother. Insane.

2.25

Another Afrobeat album by Fela Kuti. This one was good too, but maybe it didn't hit quite as well as the previous album I listened to.

Too much brass for me and very repetitive.

Favorite track(s): Zombie, Mr. Follow Follow

An unbelievable blend of revolutionary politics and the greatest grooves you'll ever hear. He's a legend for a reason.

Heard before
Previous rating: 9/10

Nothing special

I had this guy's other album, which was pretty good but not quite great. This is apparently a highly political album that contains only two tracks. The first track, "Zombie", is a very energetic and political Afrobeat jazz track. The second, "Mr. Follow Follow", is slower but no less political. The musicianship on both tracks is undeniably excellent, and they both have excellent grooves to them. The lyrics of "Zombie" primarily deal with the military and it's blind following of orders, while "Mr. Follow Follow" is a call to the ordinary citizens of Nigeria to protest their corrupt government. Both tracks have power and passion behind them, and both are great songs. Therefore, this is a great album, even if it stretches the idea and definition of "album" somewhat.

Even though the songs are pretty long, I didn't mind it. I was really hoping to have something more different on this list. I had another Fela Kuti record before and I enjoyed that one a bit more, but this was equally as interesting and groovy. It's just something about african grooves.

Good beats. Worth committing murder over? Now there's the real question.

Another of those "either you're dancing or you're dead" albums.

The sort of slinky hipped, sexy, slithering afro-jazz funk that Paul Simon dreamed he was making during the Graceland sessions.

And then you read the story of what happened after the album was released and you think "Holy Hell!"

And then you read about Kuti's life and realise that there's so much more here than a toe tapping good time.

No skips, no lowlights.

*Cool world jazz/funk album

I enjoyed Zombie, the rest was a little too much of the same.

So good

I recently listened to the podcast, Fear No Man. It’s about Fela and his life and music. So this couldn’t have came at a better time. Zombie is thee song/album in Fela’s catalog. The groove all over this album is just so good!! If you don’t want to move or dance or feel happy, you might be dead. On top of that, the message of Zombie is so poignant and still lives on today. But of “soldiers”fighting in wars and killing other human beings pretty much only because they’ve been told to…zombies…no brains of their own

My only prior experience with Fela Kuti is with the other album of his on this list, so this is my first time listening to this particular album.

This is exactly what I was expecting, and it's solid. I'll definitely check out more Fela Kuti albums.

Very interesting. Really enjoyed it. It's not my favourite kind of music, but this was good (and a discovery, as I had heard of Fela Kuti but had never listened to his music).

Such a great record - so much going on musically.

4.5/5.0: Excellent

a great album with a fascinating story

Amazing songs but too many wives