In the mid to late 1950s, the wave of independence swept across West Africa, and along with it, a search for new meaning for its freshly created nation-states. At the same time, in the region’s built environment, modernist architecture took root, reinterpreted to adapt to the climate; and by the 1960s, it had become the poster image of independence and Pan-Africanism (as discussed in London’s V&A's recently opened exhibition 'Tropical Modernism: Architecture and Independence').
Simultaneously, musical expression was at an all-time high, especially with the introduction of a new genre of music, Afrobeat, which, like tropical modernism, synthesised foreign influences into a new cohesive and contextual whole. Its purveyor, Fela Kuti, was of Nigerian descent. His style crystallised in musical form a zeitgeist in the region, melding infectious percussion and wind instruments with critical social and political commentary.
