Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in Performing Arts
Episode: Jibola Fagbamiye and Conor McCreery, "Fela: Music Is the Weapon" (Amistad Press, 2025)
Description: A spectacular graphic novel about the life and times of the legendary Fela Kuti—the Pan-African frontman, multi-instrumentalist, sociopolitical powerhouse, and father of Afrobeat.
In Fela: Music Is the Weapon (Amistad, 2025), artist Jibola Fagbamiye and writer Conor McCreery team up to tell the remarkable origin story of one of Nigeria’s most famous sons, the King of Afrobeat, Fela Kuti, who rose to superstardom with his band Africa 70 in the 1970s, during a charged political period for his nation.
A once-in-a-lifetime musical talent who innovated the musical genre Afrobeat, Fela was also an outspoken critic of the...