Interview and article - Lekan Animashaun

Baba Ani: "Fela Still Appears To Me In My Dreams"

Lekan Animashaun, aka Baba Ani, baritone sax player and leader of Fela Kuti’s legendary Egypt 80 band, gave a revealing interview last week to Lagos’s The Daily Vanguard newspaper. Baba Ani was one of the original members of Fela’s musical universe, joining him to help form Koola Lobitos in 1965. He remained as a key force in the innovative horn section that powered Fela throughout the musical glory days the 1970s, and was also a leader of the Movement of The People, a political party founded by Fela.

In the extended interview, Baba Ani, who just turned 70, reflects on his three decades of playing music with Fela:

How did you then meet Fela?

I met him at NBC studios at Ikoyi (Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation). At that time when I was with the NBC band, we used to rehearse on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, unless we were having a show, which was the procedure. I was there on one of the rehearsals and decided to go to the canteen during break and met Fela and introduced myself to him. Before then I had heard about him trying to form a highlife band, when he got back from London he was having a small group, a combo with Tony Allen on drums. So I walked up to him and explained what I heard about him concerning his plan to form a highlife band and explained to him the instrument I could play. He asked if I had my instrument with me and my response was in the affirmative. So, he gave me an appointment for four o’clock on Monday at his then Kalakuta Republic, 14A Agege Motor Road.

That same evening, I got home, carried my baritone and headed for Fela’s house. I met him with Benson Idonije who was producer at NBC, January 1965. He gave me a piece of paper on which he had written the baritone part. So, I set up my instrument and I went and read through it with my instrument and he said to Idonije; ‘ah! He has made it.’ That was how we started together...

Baba Ani was a skilled sight reader, but he explains how Fela wrote out horn parts for the musicians in the group, who came from a variety of musical backgrounds:

Did Fela write his music, score the drums?

He did, sometimes he uses his mouth to dictate the rhythm he wants, but initially he was writing. Even he was writing on music manuscript but when it got a stage he was writing on pieces of papers because he had reduced his music writing to tonic solfa instead of writing the note.

Why did he do that?’

Because at that time we were having problems with instrumentalists that couldn’t read music. To make it simpler for those who could not read notation on music manuscript, and were able to understand tonic solfa and that was why he reduced his music reading to tonic solfa on pieces of papers.

Baba Ani also describes the mistrust that some Nigerians had for Fela and his revolutionary message:

How did your family take your association with Fela, the late nights, beating up of the band members (by the police and army)?

It was battle royale because none of my family members supported my playing with Fela, even playing music because I remember when I was playing with Chris Ajilo at the Federal Palace Hotel, when I dressed up in the evening to go to the Federal Palace to play, some of our neighbours then would call my mother to say that I was a cult member and going for a cult meeting. A good number of my family members did not support it. Even the mother of my wife today for about three months before our marriage washed her hands off, saying that her daughter wasn’t going to marry Omonilu, but later she saw that the whole thing was becoming a reality so, she had no choice but to accept me and the ceremonies were held because I stood my ground like I still do today.

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An Article

Two prominent members of the Egypt 80 band, led by the late Afrobeat king- Fela Anikulapo-Kuti were honoured recently in Lagos. It was at the monthly elders’ forum jointly organised by the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) and O’Jez Entertainment, located at Surulere, Lagos.

The two Afrobeat legends; Lekan Animashaun (a.k.a Baba Ani), and Duro Ikujenyo, were honoured at the 60th edition of the Great Highlife Party, otherwise known as Elders’ Forum. Interestingly, the duo were Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s side-men. Animashaun, now 70, was Egypt 80’s band leader while Ikujenyo, was the band’s keyboardist.

Friends and admirers honoured both men as they beamed with smiles. And perhaps more significantly, the duo’s birthday feast coincided with Nigeria’s Independence Day Anniversary in addition to marking the fifth anniversary of O’Jez Entertainment. Anchored by veteran broadcaster, Benson Idonije, the party drew a large number of elder artistes, thereby making a major statement on the flourishing highlife scene. In his remarks, CORA’s Secretary General, Toyin Akinoso recounted how Baba Ani was snatched away from Pa Chris Ajilo’s Kubanos Band by the late Abami Eda.

“He was recruited in the 60s,1964 precisely into the Egypt 80 Band and he was one of the frontline members of Movement of the People (MOP), a political party founded by Fela during the Second Republic” However, the claim that Baba Ani was ‘snatched’ from Chris Ajilo band was however faulted when Ajilo himself mounted the stage. He told the all-attentive audience that there was a particular journey, which Animashaun was supposed to go with the group but could not make it. His words “he (Baba Ani) was then working with the Lagos Town Council.

Of course, he could not go on tour with us. That was why we had to let him go. He was not snatched by the late Fela Anikulapo. He has always been a very close friend. Now, I am very proud of him because when he left Kubanos, the next band he joined in 1965 was Fela’s band.”

Duro Ikujenyo who is presently the leader of Age of Aquarius was lauded for his managerial acumen. He was said to have produced some of Fela’s songs and that of Fatai Rolling Dollars. Fela’s Unknown Soldier and Fatai’s Won Kere si Number wa particularly were two popular songs credited to the keyboardist. Akinoso noted further, “I know that there are some other people here who know so much about the two, adding, however, that their scholarly position was deliberate and it was to create a platform for collaboration with O’Jez.

Also, Seyi Solagbade, highlife singer and leader of Blackface said Ikujenyo was a legend whose efforts cannot be pushed aside. He said:“ He (Ikujenyo) has been there for so long doing things that are creative. He is a veteran of a kind. I think these are the kinds of legends Nigerians should celebrate.”

On the highlife party, Solagbade said that the initiative has come of age and should begin to attract corporate sponsorship. “CORA has been there for almost 20 years now. It has been a self sponsored programme but big companies should now show interest in things like these rather than fund programmes that will pollute the minds of the youths.”

Shortly before guests took to the floor, Elder Steve Rhodes, Fatai Rolling Dollars and Chief Femi Asekun inducted the celebrants into the Elders’ Forum. Soon after, Chris Ajilo relived the Eko o gba gbere oldies while Baba Ani performed Oni Dodo Oni Moinmoin.

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The Afrobeat Diaries ... by allaboutjazz.com (Pt.III)

THANK YOU AGAIN Michael Ricci and Chris May from allaboutjazz.com

The Afrobeat Diaries, Part 3

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The first two entries in the Afrobeat Diaries looked at the extraordinarily courageous albums with which Fela Kuti took on the Nigerian military regime during the mid to late 1970s. Part 3 revisits two outstanding albums made by key Afrika 70 members during the same period—trumpeter Tunde Williams' Mr Big Mouth (Afrodisia, 1977), recorded in 1975, and baritone saxophonist Lekan Animashaun's Low Profile (Not For The Blacks) (Kalakuta Records, 1995), recorded in 1979 with additional recording in 1986.

Both albums were produced by Kuti and presented Williams and Animashaun leading bands drawn, respectively, from Kuti's contemporaneous Africa 70 and Afrika 70 lineups. In addition to their instrumental contributions, Williams and Animashaun also wrote, arranged and took lead vocals on their sets. Both albums were only available in small numbers on original release and soon became collectors' items. In 2004, the two albums were reissued on a single CD by London's Honest Jons label. That disc remains on catalogue in 2009.

Only a handful of albums featuring Africa/Afrika 70 fronted by musicians other than Kuti were made during Afrobeat's purple period which lasted from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s. Drummer and bandleader Tony Allen—who deserves, alongside Kuti, co-credit for the creation of Afrobeat (and who will be the subject of an upcoming Diary)—was one bandmember who had the opportunity. Williams and Animashaun were others. But the second-strand Africa/Afrika 70 albums, though infrequent, are of a uniformly excellent standard.

The infrequency of the projects is explained by the extreme pressures facing Kuti and his organisation during the period, some of which were documented in Part 1 and Part 2 of the Diaries. For starters, the Kuti-fronted band recorded prolifically: at its busiest, between 1975-1977, releasing 19 albums (an average of over six a year), from He Miss Road (EMI Nigeria, 1975) to No Agreement (Decca West Africa, 1977). Second, the organisation was subject to increasingly oppressive, and outrageously violent, reprisals by the Nigerian army and police, including the wholesale destruction of Kuti's live/work compound Kalakuta Republic in 1977. Finally, by the early 1980s, Kuti himself was increasingly involved in extra-musical political activities, including running for president, as punishment for which he was jailed in 1984 on trumped-up currency smuggling charges. He served 19 months.

Tunde Williams, born in 1943, began professional life as a drummer and percussionist before switching to trumpet. He joined Kuti's pre-Africa 70 band, Koola Lobitos, in 1967, and stayed with Kuti until 1978 (when the Afrika 70 breakup which would lead Kuti to form Egypt 80 began). After successful years as a session player in Lagos, he relocated to the San Francisco Bay area in the mid 1980s.

A featured soloist on many of Kuti's albums, Williams' hard bop flavoured trumpet is the focus of "The Beginning," a moody, mid-tempo instrumental which was originally side two of Mr Big Mouth. The track lasts 14 minutes, the second seven of which are given over to a feisty Williams' solo played against a call and response horns arrangement. On the uptempo "Mr Big Mouth," Williams puts down the trumpet to deliver the lead vocal, his lyrics addressing the corruption and fraud rife among the Nigerian business class. As a singer, Williams is technically competent, with a style resembling Kuti's though lacking some of its depth. Kuti himself plays agitated saxophone and organ solos. On this track, Afrobeat's signature interplay between tenor and rhythm guitars is as good as its gets, and altogether, Mr Big Mouth sits comfortably alongside any Kuti-led album of the 1970s.

Lekan Animashaun, born in 1936, joined Koola Lobitos in 1965, and stayed with Kuti until the latter's death in 1997. In Egypt 80 he took the bandleader role held by Tony Allen in Africa/Afrika 70. In 2009, Animashaun plays alto saxophone in, and is musical director of, the Egypt 80 lineup fronted by Kuti's son Seun.

With its basic tracks recorded in 1979 (but release delayed until 1995), Low Profile (Not For The Blacks) was made during the breakup of Afrika 70. This is why Allen is the drummer on one track, "Serere," and Masefive Anam takes over on the other, "Low Profile (Not For The Blacks)." Animashaun is lead vocalist on both tunes. As a singer, his delivery is closer to that of traditional Nigerian music than those of Kuti or Williams, and he makes less use of the Broken English Kuti adopted to give his own lyrics wider currency. The effect is refreshing. On the title track, Animashaun contrasts the bling-like profligacy of the Nigerian ruling elite with the standard of living the mass of the people were expected to endure; on "Serere" he tells his listeners that justice and morality start at home.

Animashaun's saxophone is heard winningly on both tracks, and the tough, declamatory solo on "Serere," played against an unusual (for Afrobeat) horn arrangement evoking the dramatic filmscore flourishes of Elmer Bernstein, is among the best he recorded during the period. There are strong solos too from trumpeter Olu-Otenioro Ifayehun and keyboard player Durotimi Ikujenyo. As much as Williams' Mr Big Mouth, Animashaun's Low Profile (Not For The Blacks) is first-generation Afrobeat at its best.



Mr Big Mouth



Tracks: Mr Big Mouth; The Beginning.

Personnel: Tunde Williams: trumpet, vocal (1); Nwokoma Stephen Udem: trumpet; Fela Anikulapo Kuti: tenor saxophone, keyboards; Lekan Animashaun: baritone saxophone, backing vocal; Oghena Kologbo: guitar; Leke Benson: guitar; Franco Aboddy: bass; Tony Allen: drums; Henry Kofi: conga; Shina Abiodun: conga; Nicholas Addo: conga, backing vocal; Isaac Olaleye: shekere; James Abayomi: sticks; Kemi Omitola: backing vocal; Fehintola Kayode: backing vocal; Candido Obajinmi: backing vocal.



Low Profile (Not For The Blacks)



Tracks: Low Profile (Not For The Blacks); Serere.

Personnel: Lekan Animashaun: baritone saxophone, vocal; Olu-Otenioro Ifayehun: trumpet; Fela Anikulapo Kuti: alto saxophone, organ; Oyinde Adeniran: tenor saxophone; Mukoro Owieh: baritone saxophone; Okalue Ojeah: guitar, backing vocal; Mardo Martino: guitar; Durotimi Ikujenyo: keyboards, backing vocal; Kalanky Jallow: bass; Masefive Anam: drums (1); Tony Allen: drums (2); Henry Kofi: conga; Udoh Udoh: conga; Dele: conga; Alele Adana: sticks; Wale Toriola: sticks; Femi Anikulapo Kuti: backing vocal; Dele Sosinmin: backing vocal; Fehintola Anikulapo Kuti: backing vocal; Ihase Anikulapo Kuti: backing vocal; Tokumbo Anikulapo Kuti: backing vocal; Aderonke Anikunifa: backing vocal; Alake Anikulapo Kuti: backing vocal.


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