Beasts Of No Nation | Trouble Sleep Yanga Wake Am

VINYL FORMAT. "Fela Anikulapo (Ransome) Kuti's life and career were more than anything an attempt to fuse the worlds of music and politics irrevocably. Kuti spearheaded the new fusion of West African originated 'Afrobeat' - a genre of which he was and is the indisputable leader - with a determined militancy inspired by pan African radicalism and to a lesser extent U.S. black nationalism, and, in the process, made him as many enemies as followers; but always carried by the unfettered musical intuitiveness and improvisation that lent his politically abrasive forthrightness an undeniable mass appeal, transcending well beyond his own specific conditions and appealing on a universal musical scale really unmatched by many musical moguls. . . a true 'empire' that has transcended Kuti's own death and lives on (perhaps unfortunately) in the form of his kin and idolizers alike. His music, that joyous instrument of social change, was his catalyst and albeit integral vessel for radical agitation. It's not that the countless albums stand on their musical merit alone, the truly free method to the relentless and melodically entrancing reiteration of his own Afrobeat - a music that in itself needs no heady articulation to be enjoyed, and it's basically universal popularity testifies to this. But the very volatility of his music at once elevates the songs into something more than relegated culture. On the contrary, you can still sense the urgency in these records, essential battle tools against colonialism and political apathy, igniters of the great fire of agitation while remaining essential and undeniable landmarks of exceptional musical invention. This exclusive 12" pressing of some of Fela's finest work, the undeniably masterful 'Beasts of No Nation' and 'Trouble Sleep Yanga Wake Am,' presents a formidable example of Fela's finest work, the best possible examples of his own personal unity of theory and practice that has created over 30 full-length albums and an unshakable legacy that lives on with justifiable necessity."