Fela Anikulapo Kuti: Donald Duke shares how Afrobeat legend would have made $1M from tour with Bob Marley

Donald Duke shares the stories of how Fela Anikulapo Kuti would have made 1M dollars from proposed tour with Bob Marley and his relationship with the late Afrobeat legend.

Former Governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke, has shared the story of how the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti lost the sum of $1M, which he could have made by going on a tour with the late Bob Marley.

Fela Anikulapo Kuti was a Nigerian musician and leader of the Egypt 80 band, who pioneered the Afrobeat music genre, reigning supreme on the continent in the seventies and eighties, before his death on August 2, 1997, while Bob Marley, who passed away in May 1981, was a Jamaican music icon and leader of the Wailers band.

In an exclusive interview with Pulse Nigeria's Loosetalk Podcast, Donald Duke recounted how Fela, alongside two of the biggest international names at the time in Bob Marley and Stevie Wonder, had been booked for a world tour which could have earned the Abami Eda a fee of one million dollars.

But this came at a period when Bob Marley was diagnosed with Acral Lentiginous Melanoma in 1977, which eventually led to his death two years later.

ALSO READ: Donald Duke speaks on the night Fela's Suffering and Smiling was birthed

 

'A friend (Ogunniya Oki) and I went to see Fela. Oki was close to Bob Marley as I was to Fela, and in the course of discussion - by this time Bob Marley had died - Oki told Fela that at his (Bob Marley) death, he was worth 200M dollars," 'Duke told Loosetalk Giants

According to Duke, Fela kept quiet for about five minutes, he didn't say a word. After a while, and talking to himself, Fela said, ''he must die, why he no go die? he must die''.

Fela kept talking to himself in a low voice and when Duke and Oki asked him why he made such comments, Fela explained that they -  himself, Bob Marley and Stevie Wonder - had a concert to hold. They were to go on a world tour, and on that tour, he would have made one million dollars.

"When he was disturbing Nigeria, his value was 1M dollars. On that tour, he was going to make a million dollars and that would have been OK for him. But they couldn't do the tour because Bob Marley was sick. Eventually he died, so he jokingly said,' he must die',' Duke said, recalling his conversation with the late Fela.

How Duke met Fela Kuti

Duke also shared the story of how he met Fela, who he said inspired him to learn the saxophone.

''We met at the Shrine, I was a social secretary in Zaria, at Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), but before then I used to go to the shrine a lot. His paymaster [Roy Smith] was a family friend, so I'll go to the shrine and of course, I won't pay.

I take my friends, and his paymaster and I got to meet Fela. We [Fela and Duke] just got on. I would go to his house at Moshalashi and we just gist and talk and talk.

Even though he never directly played the saxophone with Fela, Donald Duke says the late legend was his teacher.

''Fela taught me how to play the Sax, yeah... I was pretty friendly with him and he liked me. I think he liked me more for my name.

He thought my name was so foreign, 'Donald Duke'.' Always trying to get me to change my name, he called me Kolo''.

He said to me, 'if you want to play the sax then you have to own one, cause you don't share it.'  So I bought myself a saxophone and I started learning and all that. So he inspired it. I never practised with him but he inspired it''. He concluded.

The trio of Fela Kuti, Bob Marley and Stevie Wonder, outside being recognised as some of the biggest names from their respective continents in the 70s and 80s, were also noted for their roles as activists, who led campaigns with music as a tool.