Fela Kuti – Original Sufferhead (LP Vinyl)
Product Details
Fela's transition from Afrika 70 to Egypt 80 marked more than a band name change; it signaled a sharpening of his political focus in the wake of the 1977 Kalakuta Republic raid and his mother Funmilayo's death. The Egypt 80 era found him pushing Afrobeat's rhythmic architecture into longer, more demanding territory, with side-long compositions that rewarded patience and punished passive listening.
"This edition of Original Sufferhead is a major event. With the release of box set #5, and now on this reissue, the title track of this magnificent album is presented in its full-length, 25 minutes 24 seconds glory. While preparing the master disc for the box set, our engineer Jedi, Colin Young, discovered four minutes of “lost” material on the B-side of the original pressing, including a superb keyboard solo by Fela. This had been omitted from subsequent reissues. The restored version used here starts and finishes with Fela’s keyboard work, a typically venturesome blend of futurism and visceralism.
Original Sufferhead was the first album Fela released under Egypt 80’s name (he had disbanded Afrika 70 in 1979).
On the title track, arguing from the personal to the political, Fela describes the inhuman treatment and poor living conditions experienced by working class Nigerians, the people he called sufferheads. In “Power Show,” Fela sings about the two-tier system dividing Nigerian society, in which the rich get treated one way and the poor another. This edition is pressed on ewuro (opaque light green) vinyl."
Tracklist
UPC: 720841205234
Label: Partisan Records
Release Date: 2.23.24
Format: LP Vinyl