Fela Kuti - Alagbon Close (50th Anniversary) [Opaque Orange Vinyl]

Knitting Factory Records

£23.04

Format: Coloured Vinyl LP
Catalogue No.: KFR2011-8
Barcode: 0720841207184
Release Date: 11 Oct 2024
Genre: International

 ‘Alagbon Close’ was the first of Fela’s albums to have a sleeve designed by Ghariokwu Lemi, whose artwork fast became an integral part of Fela’s catalogue and Afrobeat’s message.
 The disc was named after the headquarters of the Nigerian Criminal Investigation Department in Lagos. The title track concerns two police raids on Fela’s house, in April and May 1974. On the first occasion, they came looking for weed but could not find any. On the second, they attempted to plant a joint on Fela, but he grabbed it and swallowed it. He was detained at Alagbon Close for three days, while the police waited for the evidence to drop into his slop bucket. Fela was locked in a communal cell the prisoners jokingly called Kalakuta Republic (‘kalakuta’ is Swahili for ‘rascal’). His cellmates engineered a ‘faeces switch’ and Fela was pronounced innocent. On his release he renamed his house Kalakuta Republic.
 ‘Alagbon Close’ calls out the Nigerian police’s violence and arrogance and apparent immunity from prosecution. “Nothing special about uniform,” sings Fela. “Uniform na cloth na tailor dey sew am like my dress,” replies the chorus (meaning: just because you are wearing a uniform does not make you above the law).
 Originally released on the independent Jofabro label in 1974 ‘Alagbon Close’ marks the first full flowering of Afrobeat, as a music and as a principled political philosophy. Instrumentally, the album brings together the several signature elements of Fela’s Afrobeat, which had not previously been moulded into such a unified, finely balanced form on record. Lyrically, it is a full-on confrontation with an enforcing power of the Nigerian state.
 Many of the musical elements which make ‘Alagbon Close’ so compelling can be heard on earlier recordings, but on this album, Fela pulled them all together to devastating effect, in the process creating the classic Afrobeat paradigm.
 LP pressed on Jollof (translucent orange) coloured vinyl.
 Press - Previous support from MOJO, NME, The Quietus, Record Collector, The Vinyl Factory, Jazzwise, Rolling Stone.

Tracklisting
Alagbon Close
I No Get Eye For Back