The HighLife

A couple of days ago i made a post about Felabration.  In the process of creating that post, i found that there were are a lot of songs that i really wanted to highlight but couldn't.  That gave way to the birth of this little project, that i'm going to name AfroFriday.  Every Friday, i'll be posting a new Afro-centric, Afrobeat or otherwise, track on here.  Today's post will the first of the series, but stay tuned for more every week.

Fela Kuti - J'en wi t'emi (Don't gag me)

I'll kick off by highlighting a couple of lines.  "T'in ba r'oto ma so, o le p'anu mi de. J'en wi t'emi o.  O le p'anu mi de." (When i think the truth i will say it, you can't keep my mouth shut. Let me speak my piece.  You can't keep my mouth shut!) Those are the first words sung on this track, essentially boiling down to 'Don't gag me'. The next highlight, "Otito koro, omo ara'ye o fe" (The truth is bitter, the people of the world/society doesn't want it).  Truer words have never been spoken on a track.  Expression is everything, and expressing the truth is life.

Musically, this song is amazing.  The guitar riff sets the tone and pace, and it rolls through the entire track.  The bass line and percussion are also steady mainstays throughout as well.  The flavor comes with the horns.  It accentuates the base groove, and raises the tempo seamlessly.  But the best part is when the horns drop out to bring you back to base groove.  This is 13-plus minutes of get-down laid down on wax.  You add that to the that knowledge Mr. Kuti is dropping, you get an amalgamation of sound and groove that can only be described as simply, the truth.