Fela Kuti: Fear No Man

Higher Ground

In a world that’s on fire, what is the role of art? What can music actually…do?

Can a song save a life? Change a law? Topple a president? Get you killed?

In Fela Kuti: Fear No Man, Jad Abumrad—creator of Radiolab, More Perfect, and Dolly Parton's America—tells the story of one of the great political awakenings in music: how a classically trained 'colonial boy' traveled to America, in search of Africa, only to return to Nigeria and transform his sound into a battering ram against the state—creating a new musical language of resistance called Afrobeat.

For years, the world’s biggest stars made pilgrimages to Nigeria to experience Fela’s Shrine, the epicenter of his musical revolution. But when the mix of art and activism got too hot, the state pulled out its guns, and literally opened fire.

Fela Kuti: Fear No Man is an uncategorizable mix of oral history, musicology, deep dive journalism, and cutting edge sound design that takes listeners deep inside Fela’s life, music, and legacy.

Drawing from over 200 interviews with Fela Kuti’s family, friends, as well as scholars, activists, and luminaries like Burna Boy, Paul McCartney, Questlove, Santigold, and former President Barack Obama (just to name a few), Fela Kuti: Fear No Man journeys deep into the soul of Afrobeat to explore the transformative power of art and the role artists can play in this current moment of global unrest.

An Audible Original presented by Audible and Higher Ground. Produced by Western Sound and Talkhouse.

14 - 13: African Counterpoint