In 1977, after Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti criticised the military regime in his native Nigeria, 1,000 government soldiers raided his compound, Kalakuta Republic. They beat and raped its inhabitants and threw Kuti’s 78-year-old mother from a second-storey window, ultimately killing her. Despite the attack, Kuti continued to use his music as a way to speak out.
Meanwhile, Roy Ayers – my father, with whom I have never had a relationship – was riding high on his 1976 hit song Everybody Loves the Sunshine. While he wasn’t especially political, he and Kuti had common ground in their pan-African beliefs. Ayers’s lawyer, who was Nigerian, convinced him that he and Kuti should link up. “You should go to Africa,” he said, “because there’s a musician I want you to meet.”
