Lanre Arogundade, publisher of the new book ‘Fela, Yesterday’s Message As Today’s Reality’ has said he would be doing history a great injustice if he does not write a book on the great musical icon, Fela Anikulapo Kuti.
Arogundade, at his book launch over the weekend, spoke of his encounter with Fela and how he ‘got exposed to the other side of Fela that people didn’t know’.
Arogundade who is also the Director of International Press Centre noted that his frequent visit to Fela shrine availed him more opportunities to know more about the personality of Fela.
“Fela gave opportunities to many other young artistes like Majek Fashek. There was the Fela that was a builder of other musicians.
“With this wealth of knowledge about Fela, I felt that I would be doing history injustice not to document some of them so that some other people could at least understand the man Fela.
He maintained that the more people think they know Fela, the more they realize they don’t know him.
He said, “This is somebody I encountered through three important phases of my life, the year of childhood, as a village boy as it were, who never had opportunity of visiting Kalakuta republic or see Fela play but connected with him by just listening to his music in my uncle’s musical store at Ijebu-Ijesha.
“The second phase as an undergraduate and as president of the National Association of Nigerian students. When we saw him perform live on campus and then when we were asked to come and defend him because he was jailed for currency trafficking.
“The third phase was when I graduated and became a journalist and human rights activist, his doors were always opened to me because he recognised the fact that I am a fighter for social justice. His interviews were very revealing about his politics and message.”
Arogundade advised Nigerian contemporary artistes to be deep for them to sell ultimately.
He also urged them to be socially relevant to the society in which they are and help society to develop better.
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