Fela Kuti Everything Scatter on LP

Almost two decades after his death, vindication has come to Fela Kuti, Africa's musical genius. AfroBeat, his gift to the world, is now an international staple on his own uncompromising terms, social content intact. Throughout his life, Fela contended that AfroBeat was a modern form of danceable, African classical music with an urgent message for the planet's denizens. Created out of a cross-breeding of Funk, Jazz, Salsa and Calypso with Juju, Highlife and African percussive patterns, it was to him a political weapon.

Everything Scatter, originally released in 1975, is one of several masterpieces from early in Fela's mid-1970s purple period. In three extraordinarily productive years, Fela released 20 some albums of new material. The purple period continued up to and immediately beyond the Nigerian army attack of February 1977 which destroyed Fela's self-governing commune, Kalakuta Republic.

By the time Everything Scatter was recorded, Fela had put all Afrobeat's key elements in place: the signature rhythms he had developed with drummer Tony Allen; edgy, jousting tenor and rhythm guitars; call and response vocals; fat horn arrangements and extended, jazz-based horn and keyboard solos; politically confrontational lyrics; and, crucially, the Broken English Fela adopted to take his message beyond Yoruba speakers.