Water No Get Enemy
So I just came from a London production of FELA! the Musical (broadcast by the National Theatre from London to NYU's Skirball Center) and I cannot even hope to give an objective perspective on the production here. What I will talk about is where and how exactly it impacted me and why it's made me realize how much I love Nigeria.
I grew up the son of two Nigerian parents, so while I and my siblings were about as Americanized as can be, Nigeria was a constant presence in our home. What I always saw in my mother and my father was a silent, almost spiritual persistence in the face of life's tumults, a determination I learned later was borne of their experiences in their home country. But what I also noticed was a commitment to joy, a 'smiling' instinct. Another product, I later learned, of having come from that country.
I came out of the theater this evening with an abounding pride in the country that spawned my parents (and in its own roundabout way jettisoned them both to this side of the Atlantic) as well as a sort of awakening that can be characterized as political, artistic, and personal.
FELA! is the story of the late singer and activist Fela Anilkulapo Kuti (popularly known as Fela Kuti) and the events surrounding an incident in which 1000 Nigerian soldiers raided his concert compound on orders to prevent further public musical appearances by the star. The story also chronicles Fela's spiritual renaissance and increased commitment to activism.
It begins with music so infectious and exciting that until the monologues and silences, I hadn't realized how hard my heart had been beating. It was music that demanded participation, which was perhaps the sole detraction in having had to watch the production on a screen as opposed to live. But Fela can't help but comment on and jab at the then-current state of Nigeria. The rampant corruption, the military dictatorship, the omnipresent poverty and the ever-fleeing riches of the country's resources (both oil and people).
While he finds his musical voice in a very intriguing montage of voyages and bombastic musical innovation, he earns more than a few powerful enemies and soon the enemies begin to jab back, costing the singer friends and eventually his family.
After a powerful spiritual sequence where Fela journeys into a hallucination where he asks his mother for permission to leave a country that is too dangerous to live in, Fela realizes the role he is to play in his nation's story. From there, the messages in his songs grow more and more cleverly caustic and the brilliance that focused primarily on music explodes onto the political arena in a shower of rousing activism and hopefulness.
So many fellow Nigerians with whom I've held fellowship during my lifetime (both friends and family, though with Nigerians, the line is blurred to nothingness) have possessed the alchemic ability I noted in my mother and father to turn the coal of material poverty into golden laughter. To laugh from both sides of the Atlantic, not simply in mocking, at their country's troubles but with an enduring love for their country. And for those still in Nigeria, many would rather live nowhere else on the earth, no matter how often the energy cuts out or how horrific the traffic gets or how idiosyncratic the public transportation in Lagos is or how sudden and ever-present the violence is. They persist in happiness, in mirth.
And that was what I saw in FELA!. I saw, through all the criticisms of government and the complaints and the detritus left after colonialism and the gripes about how a new sort of colonialism has maintained its grip on the country, a persistence in happiness.
Which brings me to my own personal awakening.
Lately, I've become more and more disillusioned and frustrated with my writing. My craft had become a source of anguish to the point where it was slowly eroding everything else in my life. It would chip away at personal relationships. It would dash away concern for personal well-being. And it eventually pushed me to hating it. If this were a marriage, I was separated and on the verge of serving my craft divorce papers.
But I realized that I'd never truly taken time to think about what I really love. Not what I enjoy or what pleases me, but what I love. What I would give my life for. What I would be nothing without.
I used to think it was writing. I used to think that if somehow I were incapable of telling stories, I would cease to exist. But that's not true. It's not what, deep down in the pits and caverns of my being, I really, truly love.
The two things I love most are my family and my country.
And FELA! taught me that those two things are one and the same.
When Fela lost his mother to political violence, the entire country was collected in mourning and in that alchemic spirit endemic to Nigerians, he turned it into charitable, incisive political action. To Fela, I imagine his country was his family, so that when his mother died, Nigeria's mother died. It was Nigeria's mother that was pushed from that second story window. And it was Nigeria's mother lying in the coffin that Fela and his supporters had delivered to Dodan Barracks and laid on the very steps of General Olusegun Obasanjo's residence.
FELA! gave me that understanding and it has infused me with new freedom and simultaneously new vigor. It is as though a veil has been lifted and the future direction of my writing is now made clear to me. The path is a bit more visible now.
FELA! showed a man in love with his country, a man who treated it as family, a man who bullied it, who battled it, and who cherished it. And that musical is as caustic and celebratory a love letter as I think I've ever seen to a country I am privileged to call my own.
I grew up the son of two Nigerian parents, so while I and my siblings were about as Americanized as can be, Nigeria was a constant presence in our home. What I always saw in my mother and my father was a silent, almost spiritual persistence in the face of life's tumults, a determination I learned later was borne of their experiences in their home country. But what I also noticed was a commitment to joy, a 'smiling' instinct. Another product, I later learned, of having come from that country.
I came out of the theater this evening with an abounding pride in the country that spawned my parents (and in its own roundabout way jettisoned them both to this side of the Atlantic) as well as a sort of awakening that can be characterized as political, artistic, and personal.
FELA! is the story of the late singer and activist Fela Anilkulapo Kuti (popularly known as Fela Kuti) and the events surrounding an incident in which 1000 Nigerian soldiers raided his concert compound on orders to prevent further public musical appearances by the star. The story also chronicles Fela's spiritual renaissance and increased commitment to activism.
It begins with music so infectious and exciting that until the monologues and silences, I hadn't realized how hard my heart had been beating. It was music that demanded participation, which was perhaps the sole detraction in having had to watch the production on a screen as opposed to live. But Fela can't help but comment on and jab at the then-current state of Nigeria. The rampant corruption, the military dictatorship, the omnipresent poverty and the ever-fleeing riches of the country's resources (both oil and people).
While he finds his musical voice in a very intriguing montage of voyages and bombastic musical innovation, he earns more than a few powerful enemies and soon the enemies begin to jab back, costing the singer friends and eventually his family.
After a powerful spiritual sequence where Fela journeys into a hallucination where he asks his mother for permission to leave a country that is too dangerous to live in, Fela realizes the role he is to play in his nation's story. From there, the messages in his songs grow more and more cleverly caustic and the brilliance that focused primarily on music explodes onto the political arena in a shower of rousing activism and hopefulness.
So many fellow Nigerians with whom I've held fellowship during my lifetime (both friends and family, though with Nigerians, the line is blurred to nothingness) have possessed the alchemic ability I noted in my mother and father to turn the coal of material poverty into golden laughter. To laugh from both sides of the Atlantic, not simply in mocking, at their country's troubles but with an enduring love for their country. And for those still in Nigeria, many would rather live nowhere else on the earth, no matter how often the energy cuts out or how horrific the traffic gets or how idiosyncratic the public transportation in Lagos is or how sudden and ever-present the violence is. They persist in happiness, in mirth.
And that was what I saw in FELA!. I saw, through all the criticisms of government and the complaints and the detritus left after colonialism and the gripes about how a new sort of colonialism has maintained its grip on the country, a persistence in happiness.
Which brings me to my own personal awakening.
Lately, I've become more and more disillusioned and frustrated with my writing. My craft had become a source of anguish to the point where it was slowly eroding everything else in my life. It would chip away at personal relationships. It would dash away concern for personal well-being. And it eventually pushed me to hating it. If this were a marriage, I was separated and on the verge of serving my craft divorce papers.
But I realized that I'd never truly taken time to think about what I really love. Not what I enjoy or what pleases me, but what I love. What I would give my life for. What I would be nothing without.
I used to think it was writing. I used to think that if somehow I were incapable of telling stories, I would cease to exist. But that's not true. It's not what, deep down in the pits and caverns of my being, I really, truly love.
The two things I love most are my family and my country.
And FELA! taught me that those two things are one and the same.
When Fela lost his mother to political violence, the entire country was collected in mourning and in that alchemic spirit endemic to Nigerians, he turned it into charitable, incisive political action. To Fela, I imagine his country was his family, so that when his mother died, Nigeria's mother died. It was Nigeria's mother that was pushed from that second story window. And it was Nigeria's mother lying in the coffin that Fela and his supporters had delivered to Dodan Barracks and laid on the very steps of General Olusegun Obasanjo's residence.
FELA! gave me that understanding and it has infused me with new freedom and simultaneously new vigor. It is as though a veil has been lifted and the future direction of my writing is now made clear to me. The path is a bit more visible now.
FELA! showed a man in love with his country, a man who treated it as family, a man who bullied it, who battled it, and who cherished it. And that musical is as caustic and celebratory a love letter as I think I've ever seen to a country I am privileged to call my own.