Fifth Fela Kuti Vinyl Box Due December

The long-awaited fifth instalment of Partisan Records' Fela Kuti vinyl reissue series, Box Set #5 (co-curated by Fela's son, multi-instrumentalist and Afrobeat ambassador, Femi Kuti, and Coldplay's Chris Martin), will be released on 10 December. This follows previous boxed compendiums (#4 was released back in 2017), curated by Fela fans Erykah Badu, Brian Eno, Ginger Baker and Questlove. 

Limited to 4,000 copies, albums featured within this special edition include Why Black Man Dey Suffer, Noise for Vendor Mouth, Kalakuta Show, Excuse O, Ikoyi Blindness, Original Sufferhead, and Overtake Don Overtake Overtake, with sleeve designs for each full-length meticulously recreated from the original vinyl pressings, alongside vintage vinyl label art. Box Set #5 also contains a 20-page full-colour booklet featuring introductions by Chris Martin and Femi Kuti; seven in-depth commentaries on each album by veteran music journalist and Afrobeat historian, Chris May; song lyrics; never before published photos of Fela Kuti; and stills taken from the 1982 Fela documentary Music Is The Weapon. There's also a 16 x 24” poster designed by Nigerian artist Lemi Ghariokwu, the creative force behind 29 of Fela's album covers.

This year, Partisan Records (home to Fela's catalogue) launched a scholarship programme at the famed Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London (Fela’s alma mater, back when it was known simply as Trinity College of Music). Details of the scholarship can be found here. 

For more on Fela Kuti visit felakuti.com