The Story Behind: Femi Kuti - Femi Kuti, Ep 23

Not that everyone needs to drop out for a solo. I know that's kind of cliched as, but it did feel like it was just, this is a backing track that a Marimba player is gonna play over for 30 seconds or 30 seconds. Are you kidding? (laughing) At a time. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - What's up everyone? Welcome to 1,001 Album Complaints, the show where experienced musicians and lifelong friends get together and discuss each week an album from Robert Timeries book, 1,001 Albums You Must Here Before You Die. We select an album at random, and we generally discuss, analyze, do a deep dive, and test the limits of our friendship by bashing each other's musical preferences. - How dare you? (laughing) - Off to a good start already, as you can see. So this week we're gonna get outside of our wheelhouse slightly, I think, by talking about Femi Kuti and his self-titled third album. If you haven't heard this album, we'll drop in a few clips along the way, so you can get a taste of it. Spoiler alert, those samples might be all you kind of need to get a taste of it. However, we are still gonna deep dive on this album today, and then at the end, we'll vote on whether or not we think you actually need to listen to this album before you die, and then it's on to the next album. And so with us today, we've got the usual suspects here. Why don't you each introduce yourselves and give us your tweet length review of this album. I'll get started, so I'm Alan, and my take on this is James Brown Goes to Africa. All right, my name is Adam. I'm very excited to talk about this, but my quick thought is how boring it must have been to be in this band. I think it depends on who you are. If you're the drummer, you might be enjoying it. All right, all right, but if yeah. Bear in mind, Adam does not smoke weed, so I think that might be a thing to do. Yeah, that's gonna be, yeah, that's a performance-enhancing drug in this case. (laughing) So, yeah, so this is Phil here jumping in. I feel like this record for me, it really is gonna kick off sort of the conversation around active, first inactive listening. And I think we can sort of, yeah, I think we can see where that's going. All right. Is Rob here and to quote a popular meme of our times, these tracks are too damn long. (laughing) Yeah, and this is Tom here, and I am excited to dive into this album, which I believe is Africa's answer to Jayden Smith. Maybe. As in the less talented and successful. Oh, yeah, it's talented in the first place. It's always better when you have to explain the. (laughing) What's going on? Jayden Smith? Come on. But that's good. No, that was just a grenade. It just had a couple of second delay there, and then it hit, so well done, Tom. Must have been the Zoom call. (laughing) What's funny 'cause I think when we first started talking about this on the text string, the banter was around like the doozle's apple of Nigeria or something to that effect. And so, yeah, I think we're along as well. His dad was popular though. So it's didn't work. Oh, hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on, hold on. It's like, yeah, say what you want about, Femi. We'll get into this, but, yeah, Fela is not a lightweight. Let's put it that way. So, obviously, if the name Femi QT sounds familiar, I think it's clearly due to, you know, being the oldest son of Fela QT, who essentially pioneered the Afrobeat genre of music in the '60s, sort of hilarious point of clarification that we have to make is Afrobeat is not to be confused with Afrobeats, which if you came across that term at all, so Afrobeat is a genre of music, which we'll kind of get into in a minute. Whereas Afrobeats is like a catch-all term for like modern African pop music. So why they didn't decide to make a further distinction, I'm not quite sure, but I thought that was worth that. Afropops, not a thing? Afropops sell, so that could be a good description. Earth techno pop, Autobahn. So, yeah, before we get into this album, I think we kind of have to talk about Fela QT and Afrobeat as a genre, because I think there's like such an obvious direct line to this kind of music. - It's genetic line in this case, if you actually say so. - So not a pretty direct line, a very overtly direct line here. So yeah, Afrobeat basically originated in the mid to late '60s, pioneered by Nigerian musician saxophone player Fela QT, although his drummer Tony Allen is also sort of co-credited with the creation of this. And I think he was actually the one that coined the term Afrobeat based on some beats he was playing, where he was incorporating a little bit of more hi-hat than I think was traditionally heard back in the day. - Is Tony Allen known for anything else? That name sounds really familiar in terms of like 70s drummers? - He was actually, so I don't know his portfolio of work, but I did come across a quote from Brian Eno, who considers him like one of the best drummers that's ever lived. So I'm assuming he has gotten around and definitely made a name for himself in the jazz scene. - Yeah, it could have just been in like drummer magazine, like, you know, 25 years ago or something, but that name just sounded familiar. - It's a pretty common name. - Oh, you know what? It's my land. Yeah, it's the guy who mosed my lawn too. (laughing) Is he also Nigerian? - No, and it's a guy I work with, and the guy, I assume, if drums falls through, I mean, a guy like Tony Allen has a very serious career in sales ahead of him. (laughing) - Yes. (laughing) - Maybe we were thinking of Tony Williams, is that possible? - I don't know. All right, one. - He definitely shrunk. - Is it John Smith? - Yeah, that's it, John. - Tony Williams was the drummer in the second Miles Davis quintet, right? - He shrunk. - Okay. - Also shrunk, it's hard. - So I guess the moral of the story is lots of talented Tony's playing drums. - Yes. - Yeah. - Let's leave it at that, 'cause I feel like an idiot now. - Let's continue. - No, his name did sound, it definitely rang a bell, as I was coming across the research. So at the time back in the '60s, they were in a band together, and they were playing a form of traditional African music that apparently was known as High Life Jazz, so kind of missed some branding opportunities, I think, there. - Damn, baby. - The champagne of Afrobeat. (laughing) - I might have to bring that one back. But so over time, they started kind of pushing the boundaries of High Life Jazz, and we're starting to incorporate more elements of American jazz, soul, and funk, kind of merging it with traditional kind of West African music, and that's where they came up with this sort of Afrobeat, you know, moniker, if you will. - You know, just on a side note, like how effing fun would it be to actually be there at like the knife edge of like a new genre creation, and like be involved, and like so you're like, I have stretched the boundaries of this genre so far, it's officially a new thing. That's gotta be so fun, and like super fulfilling. And then that thing goes on and spawns all kinds of other stuff. - It has a bunch of, yeah. - It's gotta feel great, I agree. - It's gotta feel fantastic. - It's like musical speciation, which if you're, sorry, that's super. - Exactly, it's a super nerdy bio joke. We will drop a description of what that word means in the show notes. - I'm just gonna go on mute for the rest of the episode. I'll talk to you guys later. - No, I agree, Tom, no I think, especially since this music generally, at least in my opinion, I don't know what you all think, but like this totally lends itself to live music. And in fact, I've actually seen an Afrobeat show, so we used to live in Eugene, and this group Anti-Bolus Afrobeat Orchestra, which, Afrobeat kinda had a resurgence a little bit in the early 2000s with someone like that jam band scene, but I remember they did this free show where Anti-Bolus came and played this really tiny music all in Eugene, and the show kicked ass, and the length of the songs in that moment was not occurring to me or was not a factor, but yeah, so I can definitely see that excitement of like, hey, you know, live like Super Procursive Jazz, big horns, big bombastic shows are happening, that yeah, that would have been a great time to be involved in that scene. - You know what this reminded me of when I was listening to it originally? I was like, you remember that cave rave in the second Matrix movie? - Oh yes, like everybody's getting their sweaty dance on, and like the Zion came. - I was like, this music would go over, so well in my environment. - Alan, though, you hit the nail on the head though, 'cause that's what I was thinking the whole time, as I was remembering or trying to picture myself live in this kind of setting, and how the energy in a place like that would be so much, it would get me so much more into the music, and if you're dancing for, you know, for example, that stuff just doesn't always translate to either the screen or the record, and I think one of this record's big problems, at least from my perspective is how it seems to to sheer off all the rough edges of a live recording. And really, everything just feels neutered and compressed. And so none of the live energy really seeps through. When you can tell that it would have been exciting to see live. So I agree with that appraisal. - I got to admit, when I hit play on the first song, it immediately, and this sort of speaks to the sound quality, right? It made me think of that song, Mr. Hot Stepper. - I remember the saxophone. - Good calm, Mr. Hot Stepper. - I love that song, yeah. 'Cause it has that saxophone in the night. And it's all like sort of a chorus down. You know, yes. This, I've also seen Afro Beach O's, I've seen anti-ballas. And this definitely lacks the. Yeah, just like this, not just like the energy, but also sort of like the showmanship of that sort of scenario, right? - Well, I wonder if you actually, and so I, to be clear, have never listened to an anti-ballas studio record. And so I'd have to think that the same, you know, lost in translation effect is happening there. - Well, I disagree slightly because we're talking about Femi's dad, Fela. And this caused me, I'm not super familiar with Fela Kuti. Of course, I had heard the name, and I knew him a little bit from our college days of listening to music. But this week, I kept bouncing back and forth into some of Fela's records, and I think those records have a lot more rawness and energy to them. And I think a lot of it comes down to the production. I think this record suffers from its time, this is what the mid '90s. There's just something, this saxophone is less. On the Fela records, you can hear them kind of maxing out on the mic. You can hear the treatment of the background singers, feels a little clippy too. There's much clankier. It's just a lot more sound dynamics in the soundscape. So I do think it can be done. And I don't know if that's because those records were actually recorded in a more of a live setting, or it really is just a compression of the sound wave kind of problem. I think that to Eka Woodfill says all the time, this album suffered from the '80s, which apparently didn't hit Africa until the mid '90s. Is that super clean, highly compressed, highly digitized sound? And the Fela stuff benefited from the '70s, like still kind of analog blowing out shit a little bit, you know, like you get a take where something's blowing out. You're like, well, that's just a take. And it gives that grit, that edge to it. - It's definitely like super slick. And Phil, you brought up like the first couple notes of the first track. And I also, I mean, within like 20 seconds, was just like, I know what this is gonna sound like. And, you know, I'll give it a chance, but I already like, in that first little horn riff, you could definitely hear the slickness. Interestingly though, one of the reviews I came across for this, which I sort of texted around because it was hilarious. Was it apparently these, you know, nine minute songs that Femi had put out were, quote unquote, clean and succinct takes on Fela's material. And to your point, Rob, about them having that more like organic sort of vibe to them, Fela's material apparently would be one track for an entire 30 minutes of a side of a record. And so I think there's probably something in like intent and approach as well, where he had no inhibitions or preconceptions that like this music needed to be packaged for a studio release. So it's probably just like, fuck it, this is 30 minutes. This is what we're gonna play. And I guess we'll just put it on the record. - We were talking a lot about Afrobeat, and maybe we should play a couple notes to orient the listener of the first track on the Femi-Cudie record, the self-titled Femi-Cudie record right now. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) This leads me to my second criticism, which is you're saying Fela was more uninhibited. Yeah, that sounds about right. And that one positive thing that a reviewer said about Femi-Cudie, the son, is that he was able to package these, like what was the point of breaking up these songs? I guess that's what we're trying to get to, because they don't actually change. I can't tell one song from the next. - Well, one thing that I will say is that Fela had a really great way of having the song literally never change. Like I like that song Colonial Mentality by Fela Kui. It is a fantastic song, and it starts off with the bass going, (humming) - And it never stops. - 13-minute song. It does not change the entire time. It keeps that, he leans into it in a way that like, it's like that joke that only works because you tell it eight times, and like it's not funny, and then the eighth time, you're like okay, it's funny, it came around. Femi-Cudie tries to have changes, but as Adam pointed out, it's all just two chord changes, but even that, like they're not leaning into the consistency of it in a way that I feel almost makes it more powerful. Like it's in your face with Fela. He's like no, I am not gonna change the song to me 30 minutes, and there's no changes, and you're gonna like it at some point. God damn it. - It's an interesting point, Tom, 'cause I think that sort of, that sort of as a thread back to what Alan said, the James Brown reference, right? James Brown is literally known for take it to the bridge, and those are straight up bridges, right? They're departures from the song, they're brief, they're designed to sort of reset you, so he can go right back into the same thing, full force, and get full payoff one more time. These songs do not have that. - You're right. - There's no payoff, yeah, there's no payoff when you go back. - There's no payoff. - There's a payoff in like the consistent, I never change, 'cause when you come around to it, that's the payoff, but in the like, I changed just enough that I don't get that payoff, but I don't give you a dynamic change, yeah, it completely lacks a payoff. - Now, I'm just gonna say that bridge comment reminds me of, I heard a quote from Salonius Monk not too long ago, and I think, I think I'm getting it right, I might be paraphrasing, but they call the bridge the inside, and the other part the outside, and it was just something like the inside is what makes the outside sound good. And he's totaling right. - Yeah. - Yeah, no, I like that, that's good. It's a good framing. - Shit, I forgot what I was gonna say. (laughs) - Oh, no, okay. - So it was joke about how Fala Cudi died, 'cause apparently he died as he's, which is really kind of bizarre to me. That's, I mean, I guess that just was happening in Africa all the time. - This is like the mid '90s, I think '97 that he died, he's been his life in Africa. And I gotta imagine, he's super famous. He is probably just banging left and right. - I mean, married 29 women at the same time or something, didn't he? Well, Femi talks openly about having multiple lovers, like as if it's just an accepted part of life. So I guess it's not all that surprising, let's be honest. - It's funny. Fala Cudi, son of a Nigerian women's rights activist, is like, I'm just gonna marry these 29 chicks and basically have a hair I'm going on, but like, no, women empowerment. - It might have, it might have had something to do with politically freeing them or something, but I'm sure there were some French benefits as well. - Oh yeah, without a doubt. - So this story I heard about Fala Cudi is that, 'cause he was a political activist too, and his son attempts to carry that on, he's speaking out against the Nigerian government, things like that, right? But I heard this story that Fala wrote a song about the Nigerian army, critical of the Nigerian army, Zambi, one of his more famous songs, and they deployed like a thousand soldiers to his compound through his elderly mother out the window, killed her, beat the crap out of 'em. And, yeah, obviously didn't keep 'em down too long, but he tangled, he tangled pretty seriously, so it's another one of these, the Dweezel's Appa reference sort of felt right to me too, because Frank's Appa is known as being this pioneer who was pushing the envelope of free speech, and it's kinda just gonna be hard to compete with that level of not only genre groundbreaking, but also social ingenuity, and it's weird when sons just go right in the same direction as fathers with that. - He should have picked up the violin, and tried his hand at classical music, or something like that. - You know what I would have done? - I would have taken the money and run. - That's what I was gonna say, you're passing up a paycheck there. - 'Cause you're just like, listen, my name is Dweezel's Appa, I can throw together a band in idiots like Rob and Tom, we're gonna come and pay money to see you play Hot Rats, and it's gonna be the worst thing I've ever seen in my entire life, but he got my money. And Femi Kudi is just like, listen, I got the last name Kudi, I can put out albums, and I'm gonna get paid. It's kinda hard to pass that up. - I guess I was just assuming there were like, zombie royalties rolling in, but maybe not. - No, it might not be. Well, that's what's kind of funny is so when. And so Femi grew up playing in the Faelas band and apparently, you know, he did this until like the mid 80s or so and then he decided he kind of wanted to, it's sort of what I find ironic about this is he deliberately wanted to chart his own course and sort of strike out and at the time in like the mid 80s when he left his father's band to do his own thing, there was like a lot of backlash of like, who are you, you know, like, why would you leave this and you're just going to start another effort beat band? Like what, what is that? That's exactly what I'm going to do. He shouldn't have done like Jason, Jason Bonham and just joined Led Zeppelin. Yeah. Funny enough, I saw a video recently, like a bass video with, you guys know, Jocco Pistorias, the bass player. So he's the son Felix Pistorias and same kind of deal where it's like hard to take it at face value. Meanwhile, he is a sick. Like if, if he just had a different name, you'd be like, this guy fucking nails. But his last thing is Pistorias and it's just never, there's also just like a weird thing like why, why does bass playing, why is bass playing in the blood? Right? Like why? It's clearly like his father was obviously out of his life to death. Like long before he had any meaningful musical influence on him. So like, how, how is that? How is it that, does he also play a fretless? No, he plays one of those like, fucking seven string monstrosities of a, and it's just like, wankfest. The Chapman stick. No, no, Phil, I can totally understand that you, your dad dies before you have a chance to develop a meaningful relationship with him. And the only thing that you know about your dad is that like he was obsessed with the bass. You're probably going to be like, okay, you know, let me, I'm going to try to get closer to him. Let me, let me try to learn some of the songs that he made. And you're like, oh, the chicken. Oh, my God. I feel like that's a, that's a very important thing. Yeah. Also, you probably like have that bass around, you know? Yeah. Right. The one that he recorded. Tracy or what was the crazy one? All of them. All of them. Yeah. Song for training. Oh, portrait of Tracy, maybe? Thank you, portrait of Tracy. Yeah. So what was interesting, though, is that like Phala did not try to like steer him towards being in this band. Apparently, according to, to Femi, he was more interested in making sure that Femi read, and actually read a lot of like African history and African American history, which was kind of something else I was interesting about Phala. So he obviously his music was informed by, by jazz. But he also was really obsessed with African American history and culture. So he came to the United States on a trip with his band in like the late 60s and he got connected with, with some black panthers and became really just intrigued and invested in, in the civil rights movement. And, you know, James Brown was also happening at the time who, I'm not sure the connection, but a pair. I saw a quote that was attributed to Phala that he thinks James Brown stole some of his music or at least his stick or something but they're off those who are often considered as like sort of analogs. Hmm. Okay. I own that B minor than ever changes. That's me. Yeah. You can't. Hey, we learned in a previous episode of this podcast that James Brown took from Solomon Burke, the crowning and the cape thing, although he did pay him for it. Apparently. And gave him the concessions, as I remember. Yeah. I mean, this is like you build any business, right? You buy some of it. You steal some of it. Some of it is your own ideas, right? Sure. Artists create geniuses steal true story. All right. Now we get what what tunes we're getting into on this, this fine. I think we already got into all. All right. That's it. You heard one year ago. 30 second sample earlier kind of. I would like to talk just about this sort of like what I came into was this sort of preconceived notion that like and I'm a, I grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, in the suburbs. I have no African, you know, base of knowledge basically. But I like I just pictured African music. Like, oh, there's African music. That concept like I couldn't help but think that like there's so many people out there who just think of African music as like one thing. And like I'd be like saying like it's North American music, which is like everything from like, Justin Bieber to like, Nargo corridors and like all the, you know, but this was what I sort of like stereotypically thought of as African music. And I realized that I didn't like it all that much. And then but I didn't want to just say I don't like African music because that just seems ridiculous, right? Like how did you say that? You just said that. Can you lump an entire continent? No, but I just being recorded. Yeah. Well, but then, but then I started like, you know, even thinking about like, oh, okay, it's not African music. It's like Nigerian music. Then like, I was like 200 million people in Nigeria. Like Nigeria is a huge price. Like it's not like you can just say like night, maybe saying like American music, you know, it's like there, there's so many different layers to this. And I feel like it was eye opening to me to do a little exploration outside of the Afrobeat genre to like get a feel of like other types of music that are coming out of this sort of same region. Yeah. I don't know if anybody else had that same experience of coming into this and be like African music. You know, I mean, I, I, there was a bit of an overlap that because I, I was curious about the elements of this. There are elements in this that I think really remind me of Paul Simon's Graceland, right? So some of the way the horns are stacked up specifically, I think a lot of the rhythms in this are a more aggressive than Graceland. I think they're sort of like neutered and popified a little, but it's, it's not quite as direct, but I think there's a clear like sort of African throughline there. And then also when I think of African music as weird as it is, I sort of think of like Led Zeppelin three. No, not three. I guess it's like Led Zeppelin. It might be like presence or I know it's the whatever one with all the like the Moroccan stuff on it. It's one with a cash mirror on it. It's physical graffiti. It says, I don't know man. Yeah, that has cash for like, you know, you got Saharan Africa in terms of Saharan Africa, totally different, you know, totally different. No, totally, yeah, yeah. Sorry. Well, that reminds me, me and Tom and I went to a African band show not too long, a couple of years ago, right? We went to that band Tanaroan in Berkeley. I'm not, I'm not misremembering this at my time. We went to get out. Oh, no, they're awesome. And it was a lot of fun, but it was the most quintessentially Berkeley 100 percent white hippies at the show kind of thing. Just vital and all complaining about the fact that the last time they came, there were fewer people and it was cooler because like there were fewer people there. And it's like, these guys are trying to make it living. But the one thing that I also remember the one thing about that band Tanaroan, trust the far ends living in fucking Berkeley. Yeah, exactly. So the band Tanaroans, like a twer egg band and they do a lot of the African column response stuff, which I like a lot. I dig the column response vocals, you know, main guy sings a line, backup singers, mirror that line or give some take on that line. And in the band Tanaroan, there was like eight guys. And one of the guys was just a background singer. Everybody else was playing a guitar, playing a drum, playing a bass, doing a bunch about it. And then there was just this one guy who was just, but like everybody else was also giving a response. And I was like, that is God's job. I think he's a joined prodigy, like, he was like, yeah, exactly. That's how easy is that job. There's like eight other people who are singing backups with you. And you're not even trying to be precise. You're just sort of like giving a response. And you're just like kind of, and he looked like he was having the best time. That's like, your life is probably so blessed because like the background of that band is they are apparently like legitimately rebels in Mali. They're like part of like a like a rebel move in the Mali that got started playing around campfires. It's like you went from like 10 years ago being a rebel to like now you're in Berkeley, just dancing on stage and singing backups and making money and probably like going out and like doing a bunch of cocaine and back. It's like it's a sweet grass. Yeah. Well, so you guys brought up earlier Phil, the idea of like, are there elements of like rock bands like, you know, Led Zeppelin, Graceland, the Paul Simon album? I was I found this interesting, although not super surprising that, you know, I mentioned Brian Eno earlier that he was really taken by Afrobeat Music, him and David Byrne. And I'd never put this together until I listened to this and did some of the research, but but remain in light the talking heads album, which came out in 1980. Absolutely. If you listen to cross-eyed and painless specifically, we should put we should put a cut in that in here, you know, maybe a few seconds, but like. I feel like an accident. To explain my experience. I don't think there's a change in the entire song and I figure it bars heavily from this and it there's extensive vamping towards the end of the song that you know I remember at the time when I first got into the album being like this is sick super danceable but like it's enough already well I mean if we're talking about remin and light and I mean obviously you maybe we'll just do remin and light soon right but there's gonna be more than one song that does that across a painless like you called out hold on you know may not change we're not there's nothing wrong with not changing let's just make that really really clear I'm for not changing if you can still put dynamics into the song I'm glad you mentioned remin and light it was on my mind as I was listening to this record this week and to Tom's question about what my background or feeling about going into African music that was kind of my touchstone as Western as it is because I knew that that had all that syncopation I knew they were influenced by stuff like failure that record is freaking amazing that is one of my all-time favorite records I'll hear no I'll hear I'll broach no argument there it's so it has nothing to do with how often you change that's not I just don't find that to be a necessarily valid criticism I feel like it's come up a couple times you don't have to be stealing and to make it dynamic how dare you so I don't think the well to be clear like I and and this actually spurs a question I have which is I'm curious what what you all liked about the album because I think it's it's clear that we we've got issues with it but for me personally like I when I think of my sort of sensibilities with music like I think rhythm first and then it all sort of builds from there whereas I'm not necessarily I don't gravitate towards like melody and harmony first like you know some other folks so I actually have like some affinity for this type of music and so I actually can appreciate your to your point Rob the lack of changes is not what gets it for me I think that the conversation is more around if it doesn't change but it there's nothing that's being added like if if you could just cut and splice a 45-minute section from the middle of the song and put it at the end you're just sort of veering into like nihilism almost at that point yeah I didn't I didn't sense peaks and valleys in the song that was my complaint and the production was I think a huge part of that probably some of it is the writing but I think some of the writing is there there's a lot of interesting horn arrangements as we're just reference that maybe remind us of things like Graceland I could see that clearly there's work put in to the arrangements and some of the riffs but the songs don't really build and they don't have any energy to them that's that's the problem and you're right one one 30-second clip is to my mind indistinguishable from any other 30-second clip on the record does it happen to be the actual track that's 30 seconds long that is actually my favorite and most interesting track on the album which is called intro it's thirty seconds thirty-one seconds long on an album that's an hour and fifteen minutes and by far the tightest most interesting thirty-one seconds on the entire album its own track called intro this might be the first time we can play an entire track like this is how we get away with it let's rip it but no I so I would like I would love to hear if you know so Rob you you just alluded to some things that you liked what what about the album did you guys like I'm happy to jump in here so I sort of like mentioned it at the top right not you know we've sort of been like chipping away at this record a little but I actually think this is like a really nice example of active verse in active listening and that sounds like maybe like a way of saying like oh like it's it's it's it's good if you're not paying attention to it like isn't that the same that's the same measure by which like we by furniture and paint choose room colors and right like things like this so like I don't think music as sort of like background music to life is necessarily a bad thing I think and I think this is really great sort of like mood music this is good party music for the same reason I could see why like this makes good live music because you're sort of lost in the experience but I think it functions at least recorded better as furniture than it does as something like you're sitting down and intently listening to because for me what I'm listening for is changes and you don't get a lot of them and for that reason like a color on the wall right like it sets a mood more than it is something to stare right out and say what do you think about that so that's what I like about it so the mood it sets Phil can I ask you a question are you free next week to be on my podcast about room colors for an hour can we yeah yeah yeah one thousand and one paint complaints but it must be great what's be great to go to IKEA with Phil 2001 campaigns thank you why rather than let's let's take it there Rob why do you want to go to IKEA with me so we can work out the kinks in our relationship yeah one of the things that I did appreciate about this album is that I feel like it did have a message very much in the way that like I can listen to like an auntie to Franco album and be like I can appreciate this I'm not the target audience I can appreciate this music I'm certainly not the target audience I can appreciate the message behind the music part of it is like a language and an inflection barrier like I can't always understand exactly what he's saying from language standpoint also my context standpoint but I am willing to give in the benefit of the doubt that like there's probably some powerful messages of you know African agency and realization and as we've talked about unity you know on this album that I think if I was the target audience would probably elevate it from just water off my back listen to like something that has a little bit more of a message that speaks to me that's what I can say I I appreciate that the album has it I myself did not necessarily appreciate it but I can give them credit that I think that there is that actual like deeper content on that out on the album yeah I think that's fair like I think there's it's sort of similar to how I almost put reggae in this category of I also find reggae to be there are elements I like about it the same way that I like ever be in some ways like there's there's tight rhythm and I think that's up speaks to me especially as a musician but I find it to be a little bit repetitive and after a while I'm not sure what I'm listening to anymore but yeah there is that you know socially conscious politically driven message there what about you Adam I was there anything that you liked and there doesn't have to be but I'm yeah yeah I I thought the rhythm section was really good the drummers a beast bass player was was was in the pocket with the drummer I mean unfortunately there's not a ton I did think back so I'm hearing a competence yeah all of the musicians right they didn't backplay in time they did so Tom will potentially know this reference I used to watch mystery science theater 3000 a lot and they they released a couple movies one of them was called Manos the hands of eight and he don't well yes if you don't know mystery science theater these guys they get a terrible old sci-fi movie or something from you know the 1940s and basically sit and make fun of it and there was one particular scene where these two actors are on the screen and they're just standing there and like five seconds goes by and they're still standing there and 10 seconds goes by and eventually one of the guys making fun of it stands up and goes do something my god and I couldn't get that out of my head as I listen to this because I feel like I it almost feels like all the musicians like had their hands tied a bit like they had so much runway on these songs but I don't feel like any one musician still there's this thing where it's like jazz that never blasts off right you got this hot rhythm section the actual sort of like fund there is like an Afro beat horn rhythm like there's something there the way that it stacked and and both the rhythm of it and the harmony that feels like quintessentially that sound but yeah you never get like it never that one guy never steps out front and and maybe as a Westerner that's like what just what you're really exposed I'm what I'm used to right it's like where's the cat scratch fever guitar solo I'm I'm expecting maybe just something more if most of the song is instrumental I'm expecting more stuff from the intramus instruments I didn't really even find his saxophone solo is that engaging well that's a good point that the instrumentation the improvisation was just it was just improvisation over the same shit you know like like not that everyone needs to drop out for a solo I know that's kind of huge as but it did feel like it was just this is a backing track that a Marimba player is going to play over for 36. seconds or 30 seconds, are you kidding? (laughing) At a time, 30 seconds. (laughing) So speaking of which, let's get into some of these tracks and I don't know that we need to dive into them too deeply 'cause I think we've done enough of that already, but let's check out Wonder Wonder, the lead-off track on the album. - Well, we already played the front, right? So let's just drop it in any other place in the track. - Let's do that. (upbeat music) - You guys played the same track. - Well, I think the earlier was that first intro of the Sacks album, that was a joke about how it sounds the same. - You can keep up with this fast-paced conversation here. - I'm trying here. - I would've made clear that I am not against the concept of this musical genre, but this execution of it is bad. And I'm holding to that. And I know, and I partially know, I'm not an expert now for beat by any stretch of the imagination, and I happen to like the decade of the '70s for a lot of reasons. And as the last part of the song, a lot of reasons, and as during this week, I was sort of checking with other music in this genre, generally, including his dad, Phala, and like that guy, William Onyabor, the other Nigerian '70s guy who did the atomic bomb. I think this is a big song. And it's just better. It has similar hallmarks, but it has more dynamics and more energy, partially because of the production. It just goes someplace. And yes, it's still kind of background music, and yes, it sets a mood, but I just, and maybe it's just of its era, but this is not good. - That's not a atomic bomb, it's awesome. By the way, that's a great song. - Tell ya? - Yeah. - There are no such hits on this one. - No, this is one of those ones that I probably checked five or six times during the course of the song to see if it was gonna be over soon. And it's a long song, don't get me wrong, but I'm not exaggerating when I say five or six times, I was like, that's like once every 90 seconds in the song is like, when is this gonna be over? - Oh my god, yeah. - Alan Narrodown the playlist of what we needed to focus on. It was still album like 40 minutes. He's like, I'll give you guys four tracks, 40 minutes. - This was my part of the hardest to come up with a focus list for, because I feel like I just thrown a fucking dart at a dart board and I'm feeling like I'll feel free of any. - I definitely, when you said the focus list that I was like, I don't know any of these fucking songs. (laughing) - I listened to the record, but like, yeah. - I listened to the first focus list. I listened to the second focus list and I was like, there is no change. There's the same list. - Oh, the one that starts with Baker Street sacks and then has a call and a response section and a marimba solo. - And again, by the way, when Fala Cudi does it for some reason, it really works. 'Cause Fala Cudi is if anything more formulaic than this, 'cause I said at the end of the last podcast, his stuff is like incredibly predictable. It's like an eight minute music section and then a four minute call and response singing section and then it's over. They hit the head one more time and it's over. And like, that works so much better than this half and half out approach of like, we're gonna kind of do a little bit of change, but we're kind of also gonna be super formulaic. It just didn't, it didn't. - Maybe it's the struggle. Like, Fala actually had a struggle in his life. I don't think Femi had as nearly as much, let's say. I'm sure he had his own trials and tribulations, but it's different just like for first generation, first generation kids of immigrants, it's a different mentality, right? - Well Fala also was, he was arrested like on Trumped up charges like many times. In fact, one of the stories that came across for this was that Fala actually, or Femi, excuse me, got his first sort of break as being something other than a side man for Fala. When Fala was actually arrested right before they were about to do a US tour and instead of canceling the tour, he was like, "Hey, Femi, why don't you do it?" And so he apparently made his bones. - White people can't tell us apart anyway. Just go out there and be fine. - So I'm glad this came up because something that really jumped out to me about this record or the story of this record. Actually, I was more to, again, like we're talking about Fala a lot more than Femi. I'm sure that drives Femi nuts. But the timeline of this record is insane. So on January 21st, 1993, Fala Cudi is arrested for murder. He is arrested on speculation of murdering an electrician that works for him, right? - Guilty. - Yeah, then. - To be fair, most electricians I've called don't answer your phone calls. - They don't show up when you deserve to be murdered. - So yeah, I might as well remind them. - I wanted to murder those guys every day. - So he murders his electrician, right? Then Femi goes into the studio to record this record in '94. Then, I guess I don't know what happens with the murder charges 'cause there's no information about him going to jail for murder. Then in '97, Fala dies of AIDS, but he's also an AIDS denialist, which is incredibly complicated 'cause his brother is the minister of health or something insane. - Oh wow. - So there is this whole crazy thing happening in Femi's life. For his dad's arrested for murder, then he records his breakthrough hit, then he tours on his breakthrough hit, then his dad dies of AIDS, which he goes to his death denying exists while his brother, his uncle, Femi's uncle, right, is going all over Nigeria and you're going directly out to Fala's fans and AIDS is super real. And I know this dude, my brother that you love has been telling you forever, it's not real, but it's totally real. Here's the evidence, my dad brother. Right, like, so like, this is a-- - There's no parallels to modern-day society to that. What's the word? - There's no, yeah, there's nothing that I can compare that to at all. - Really weird. - Really weird. - Presently, yeah. Happened once in history and that wasn't it. - But like, what a crazy time in a man's life. - Right, like, yeah. - Wait, do we say, so this is his first record? That's true, right? - No, it's actually-- - No, it's like third. - It's his third, it is self-titled, but this was the one where, first of all, there is very little information about this record. There's next to know, like, legitimate reviews from any kind of like press outlets. I couldn't find anything. - You can't find lyrics anywhere. - Well, yeah, who's transcribing that? - Right, exactly. - I'm sure there's one fan who could do it. It's not me, but-- - Oh, so in a different way, if you look up the other, like, I couldn't find the other Femikudi records on Spotify anyway. So then you, like, you know, they might exist, but-- - Yeah, this was his first with a, with like a sort of traditional record label. So this one was on like a, I think it was called Taboo Records, which was like a sub-label of Motown. So this is sort of the first album we had that had any kind of critical acclaim, which was really limited to Europe and Africa. So, you know, there's not a lot, you know, to sort of go off of, like, context-wise for this album, but my understanding is it was his third album. - All right, can we move on to the song "Survival"? 'Cause I feel like I have a couple things to say about that. Let's do it. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Okay, I'm, listen, I struggled a little bit with this designation, but I'm gonna call this my favorite song. It's a relatively low bar, but I think this is the best song. - I second that, Rob. - It was the Marimba Solo, wasn't it? - Yeah, it starts with an enticing riff and rhythm. There's an interesting rhythm going on at the front. It's just a little more interesting rhythmically. This is a very silicon valley comment, but did anyone else, I was listening to this while I was working, and I kept thinking my slack notification was going off with those wood blocks. (laughing) It was kind of maddening. - Well, I know what you're talking about. I've had similar problems before. - This song had dynamics in it for the first, like, two minutes. It was a lot of, like, come in, pull back, come in, pull back, come in, stay in for eight more minutes. And like I was digging the comment in the poll back. 'Cause as we talked about before. like if you're gonna have a song where there's no changes in the chords and there's not really a change in the tempo and there's not a change in like the rhythmic backing. Like you got to do the layering thing. You got to build and pull back and give me some kind of payoff and there was some payoff in the first two minutes of the song and then the six minutes after that just turned into the rest of the album and that I lost interest very quickly after that but I dug the first two minutes. I think my favorite moment on the record. I hear what you're saying about this song it just makes me I would really struggle to pick a favorite song because there are so similar. I do in general this this song does it is it is it is it's a stu-bore what's this song? It's track seven. Stu-bore problems. Yeah what's this about? Do we have any problems? It's about problems. Yeah he has problems. Yeah I've got a friend who's stu-bore he's got a lot of problems. Anyway the horns come in real hard at like one thirty and I'm like yeah I'll dig this that's basically like the high point of the record for me. But you know honesty if like what you're talking about is like yeah that time when the horns came in that's every single song that time when the horns came in. Oh no I think it's a particularly good time. The horns come out. It's called Stu-bore problem. It's like the idea of guy named Stu-bore hanging out. I've got a problem with you. Homer's friend that he blames everything on our plant. T-bore. T-bore. T-bore. I'm serious though go listen to the Nawa intro. I know it's only thirty seconds long and about twenty seconds in it is super frenetic. Oh yeah yeah. And the drums are just yeah they're going crazy legitimately. That's my favorite thirty seconds on the album. It's it is good. Check it out. I don't think it's actually a really good call. I think you may have won. Well speaking of frenetic so let's kind of round this out here. We did add one other track to the to this song list. This was called No Shame. Let's give that a spin. This was a relatively speaking this was a low point for me but again like who's who's counting at this point. You mentioned frenetic like or maybe I don't know if that was the word you used. That was the note that I had. The intro just like bugged me out like the high hats were just something was happening and I felt really unsettled during the beginning portions of this song. Yeah it was hard to isolate like highs and lows peaks and values on this album but this just just rub me wrong. Although the high hats it does sound like he's doing like a triplet or a dotted eight song. Something weird yeah. The lyrics are blah blah blah blah and the high hat is doing that triplet thing. So that's yeah. Yeah maybe it might be cool but my feeble like Western ear couldn't handle it but it would just felt really weird. It's funny you say that this was like a low point for you because this was the the song that I actually felt I could get a message from what he was saying. The concept of like basically it's talking about like the modern African diaspora of like hey listen because of a lot of systemic and historical reasons the economy in your country really sucks and you got to go somewhere else and you're gonna end up cleaning toilets and you're gonna end up sweeping the streets and like there's no shame there's no shame in that still kind of hold your head high. I dug that message. This is one of the ones where I was like yes if I was in that situation if I was like living in Paris as like a Nigerian you know economic refugee and I was I had a terrible job that I was like it's that age old problem of like you know I have three doctorates from the country that I came from but you don't value the country that I came from so therefore I have to like drive a cab or something like that I can imagine listening to this and being like yes I can still hold my head up high I still have value like there's no shame in striving for a better life and so you know music aside because the music was in every song was so similar that I didn't really have too much opinion on it I dug the message on this one this was one of the ones where I was like yep I feel it preach on man that's a good call. Hell yeah yeah I had a hard time honestly I love that summation of this I had a hard time like tapping into that just because you know the barrier to entry unlike me you're not the target audience right like clearly speaking to like you know born on second base upper middle class white guys from the east coast that's what he's talking to yeah um I mean you know I actually sort of feel the opposite of Tom on this track not that I don't like not that I disagree with the message in general though I'm sort of more with Tom's earlier comment that like I'm not the target audience and to that end like and not just on this record sort of in in I'll be honest in general like I'm not a lyrics guy so like you've got a you've got a the bar is high and yeah I was just not pulled in in general I think this record would be better if there was no singing so that's interesting Phil I've always kind of pegged you as a lyrics guy yeah that's interesting admission yeah yeah I think uh yeah I think yeah I think I'm not really uh or maybe I just you know after listening to this you're no longer I'd be willing to bet if we could just if we could just do like a side bet right now just fill with no internet right down the lyrics to your favorite song I'm gonna guess 30 plus percent of them are wrong that would be my guess yeah yeah I think I think I could be possible yeah that challenge accepted awesome all right so uh the moment of truth I think a lot of suspense happening here let's let's build this up as much as possible with some horns and drums um let's go around the horn Adam do you need to listen to this before you die so just like every Steven Segal movie after under siege to potentially executive decision all these songs are completely indistinguishable from each other so I'm gonna give it a no you're not a glimmer man fan come on oh shit deep dives to galt um that actually reminds me I tried to look us for for whatever reason in a moment of obvious boredom recently I was trying to figure out who Tong Poe was from the uh John Claude Van Dam movies and I started looking up kickboxer and it was someone else entirely and I just totally mixed up my Van Dam movies wasn't that chung Lee no that chung Lee is chung Lee yeah that's the same yeah yeah the big guy that was Bloodsport or wait no Bloodsport yeah that's the probably Bloodsport so yeah my bad by the way I just wanted to also throw out there that like the pull that fill and I'll give Alan as a substitute on this of untamed heart from last week's podcast with the guy with the baboon Christian Slater with the baboon heart oh that was real that's a real movie I thought Phil was screwing around his classic Phil so I I was like are you kidding now I thought you I thought he was quoting from one of his dreams dude I definitely saw that movie and it resonated with me because I liked hockey and Christian Slater and Marissa Thomas she like takes him in because you know he has a baboon heart and then at some point in the spoiler alert he goes to a Minnesota North Star's game and catches a puck at the game and then he dies later they might do it before he dies I don't know what he dies the funny thing is like in your retelling I was picturing him like catching a puck and that making his hard baboon heart explode that would be a great ending the movie is already about a baboon heart you're not really losing anything if he dies the moment he catches the puck baboon hearts and hockey match made no all right Rob does this belong quick answer no one thing we didn't mention is that Femi Kuddy has the world record for holding a single saxophone note for like over 51 minutes I'm glad we got that in and I am I'm almost tempted to have listened to that instead no it's it's listen it's saved you we can do we can do a bonus episode on better that alone belongs on the list I'm just picturing the judges sitting there politely while he's blowing past second place like I have one much longer just gonna go on my source to say the note was an E flat by the way how it broke do you know his record do you know his record he broke I have no idea maybe he invented the record. The dude from Baylor. No, I do think Kenny G. So Kenny G may not have been in second, but in the limited amount of like work I did on that, Kenny G was up to like 45 minutes and then Femi did 53. There may have been someone in between, but yes, Kenny G was involved somehow. What a waste of a life. If I'm being honest, I probably would have rather listened to a Kenny G album and listen to Femi Cudi. Femi Cudi. Maybe. So Tom thinks it's a meme. Wait, hold on. I got one more thing to say. I listen. I think it just fails to get the energy across. There are these little tiny moments where energy slips through the cracks of the curtains, like in a cheap hotel room or something, but then it typically dips right back and I had to look up and wonder if I was listening instead to like widespread panic. Do the who's the boss theme or something. It is a victim of its time, I think. I would consider seeing it live, but no, you do not need to listen to this. Listen to remain in light instead. Phil, what do you got for us? Yeah, yeah. I mean, Rob, you said a lot of it very well. You know, I think this record is nice background music. And I say that because I think it does like the band's good. The rhythm section's great. The horn sound fantastic. People are in time and in tune, but not like to that point, it's it's devoid of like the energy that you would hear on like Feli Cudi zombie, which is definitely the record I know sort of like of this genre ahead of this. And even like I hadn't thought of anti-ballas, but they're actually a couple of pretty good anti-ballas records. And the records are actually pretty good. So yeah, I feel like the energy gets through there a lot more. Also, I mean, we didn't really get into it, but this record comes in at like 70-some minutes. And in my mind, like that's about twice as long as the right length for a really fabulous record. So I mean, maybe a little longer than that, maybe a little longer than half, but it's it's long. You're telling me this album could have used an editor? That's crazy. Listen, I sort of snuck in my Kenny G dis, which you probably tell what my vote is going to be here, but yeah, this is the big fat no from me. We talked about it. If you want to scratch your itch for Afrobeat, listen to Feli Cudi. If you're just like, I just want to listen to this like some African music, some of the stuff that I was listening to recently and had listened to in the past, but I think it's just way better than this. There's like a Senegalese band called Orchestra, Baalbaab. They're awesome. I think I turned you on to their album "Pirate Music" at one point. They're super cool. Tanarwin, who's like a Malian twerig band, Bambino. Who's like a Nigerian twerig band? Dude, Bambino is sick. Bambino is sick. Dude, I never met anyone who actually has listened to them. No, they're awesome. I saw them at outside Lance several years ago, and I was like, these guys, these guys know what's up. Bambino's actually, I think, just one guy. Listen to King Sonny a day. It's like kind of like juju music, a little different. Like Ali Farkatore. There's a lot of good music from that area of the world. That's better way better than this. And this, yeah, this is not it. Like, this is just, this seems so like when I listen to that music, I'm like, this is like refreshing. This is new. This is expansive. I listen to this, and I'm like, this is reductive, and this is rehashed, and you know, warmed over, and it's just, it didn't do anything for me, so. Yeah, so no surprises here. I'm going to say no. I think it's all been said already. Do I think you should go your whole life without listening to Aferby? No, but you know, Fala is covered a few times on this list. So I cannot see a need for this. Sorry, Femi. I think you've carved out a nice niche for yourself, and you're making it happen, but unfortunately, you do not make the list this time around. Do you agree? Do you disagree? Hit us up at 1,001 album complaints at gmail.com. That's 1,001 album complaints at gmail.com. I have an actual, I got an actual question for the group here. Would you rather listen to this again, or guitar town again? Guitar to guitar sound with album. Yeah, yeah. It's also shorter. I actually heard the song guitar town the other day at some kind of function. I don't remember what it was. It was like a, we were apple picking, and there was some brewery that was there, and I was like, oh shit, what is this guitar town? Oh, it's shit. That's what it is. What is this shit? Exactly. But I was able to get through the song in like two cips of beer, which was nice and tight. I was in Tom's car last night, and it came up on his Spotify algorithm, because now it thinks he likes it. He cursed quite loud, but that is good. We also need like a shadow of Spotify account. Yes, it's not a bad idea. Robert, I did have this discussion, and I'm just to throw it out there for the listeners and for all the other people in this call, Rob very accurately pointed out that like when a song comes on, when I'm driving in the car and a song comes on that I hate, especially when there's other people in the car, I turn it up. Like I turn it up, so I'm like, listen to how shitty this song is. Listen to these specific things that are terrible about this song. As opposed to like a good song comes on, I don't do that. I'm not like, let's break the volume, because there's other people in the car, and I feel like that's, you know, there's two different kinds of people. There's the kind of people are like, listen to how much this sucks. That's a sign. Listen out great. That's a tell. There's a canonical high school with who would, if you were driving in his car, if he had to, if he had to like rip ass, he would lock the doors, roll up the windows, and turn the heat on so that you would have to like, marinate in the fart. That seems like it's of that, he's also associating the past. It's pretty much exactly the same thing. Yeah. All right, what do we do? What do we listen to do next week? I need to get out of this record. All right. So let's, let's whip out the albumator 5,000. I wonder, wonder, wonder what we're going to listen to next week. Nicely done. That's an excellent sample. Thank you, thank you, Stanley. Yeah, we're going to spin the big old wheel here and find out what is going to be up next. So drum roll, please, we will be listening to you. I don't know what the hell this is. The band is spirit and the album is 12 dreams of Dr. Sardinakis. I'm going to guess a huge commercial hit. That's what I have no idea what this is. Hey, we're on a roll here. It sounds potentially hippie, potentially psychedelic. I don't know what a Sardinakis is, but he had 12 dreams, like the imaginary of Dr. Pardon, pardon. That was like, well, I mean, this could, you know, because we're on a the contrabulous fab traction of Dr. H. You listen, if the difference is, if this was released in the 1970s or 60s, I'm in. If it was released in the 90s, I'm out. Convenulately. Bad news is given 1988. No, I'm just kidding. Oh, my God. That's the one. Yeah, it's just all synth, baby. Yeah, that era is a really bad leading indicator for us at this point. I actually, I don't know when this is from. I was joking about 1988. I hope I was wrong. Well, folks, we encourage you to listen along with us and join us next week to hear us discuss our thoughts and see if we are still on the same page. If you didn't catch all the references to the songs we referenced tonight, we made a Spotify playlist that will include in the notes, including all the tunes that we mentioned tonight. So with that, I've been out. I'm Adam. I'm Phil. I'm Rob. And I am Tom. Bush. Bush, bush, bush, bush, bush, bush, bush, bush, bush, bush, bush, bush.