In his brilliant, all-encompassing address to the 1963 inaugural ceremony of the Organisation of African Unity, the revolutionary scholar and President of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah laid out a vision for a politically, economically and culturally unified Africa. A powerful orator with a highly developed understanding of history, Nkrumah explained that Europe and America became global economic powers on the backs of stolen slave labour and natural resources from Africa.

“For centuries Africa has been the milk cow of the Western world. It was our continent that helped the Western world to build up its accumulated wealth. It is true that we are now throwing off the yoke of colonialism as fast as we can, but our success in this direction is equally matched by an intense effort on the part of imperialism to continue the exploitation of our resources by creating divisions among us.”

Nkrumah goes on to propose the coalition of individual African nations under a unified State. In his mind, the only way toward a prosperous Africa free of Western manipulation was to unite the culturally rich and diverse landmass under a single banner. “In my view, this Conference should mark the end of our various groupings and regional blocs. But if we fail and let this grand and historic opportunity slip by, then we should give way to greater dissension and division among us for which the people of Africa will never forgive us. And the popular and progressive forces and movements within Africa will condemn us. I am sure therefore that we should not fail them.”

At their core, Nkrumah’s words were born out of a vision of a world that was shaped by his own interpretation of Pan-Africanism, a political ideology about the self-determination of African people both on the continent and the diaspora. First articulated in the early 20th century and developed by scholars and activists such as Edward Wilmot Blyden, George Padmore, Marcus Garvey and others, Pan-Africanism and its promise of a beautiful future for Black people free of oppression has also inspired film, the visual arts (AfriCOBRA) and music.

When Los Angeles born vibraphonist Roy Ayers and saxophonist/political iconoclast Fela Kuti linked up in Nigeria toward the end of 1979, the spirit of Pan-Africanism was already deeply woven into their respective bodies of work. After spending much of the 60s exploring a pleasantly cool hard bop sound, Ayers and his band Ubiquity blossomed in the 70s. Albums like Mystic Voyage, Red, Black & Green (its title a reference to the Pan-African flag created by Garvey) and Everybody Loves The Sunshine were wildly popular for their fusion of jazz funk, new age spirituality and the African-inspired Black consciousness of the day.

Concurrently, Fela Kuti was concocting his own unique brew of funk, soul, jazz and Black consciousness. A central force of contemporary African music, Fela and his Africa 70 band combined the intricate guitar lines and bold brass arrangements of Ghanaian highlife music with propulsive rhythms and the hypnotic, extended song structures of James Brown lay the foundation for Afrobeat. More so than Ayers, Fela’s standing as a political figure proved just as significant as his musical contributions. In order to understand Fela’s politics, it is key to understand the socio-political context in which Fela grew up and lived. Born in colonial Nigeria, he was 16 years old when the British official reign in Nigeria ended but Britain would continue to exert significant influence over the country for years to come. In the time leading up to and following the colonial epoch in Africa, Pan-Africanism would develop as a potent ideological weapon in the struggle for self-determination in Africa. Prominent leaders like Nkrumah in Ghana, Ahmed Sékou Touré in Guinea, Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, Amîlcar Cabral in the Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde region and others inspired Africans both on the continent and around the world to embrace the diaspora and engage in the global fight against white supremacy, capitalism and colonialism. Fela’s mother, anti-colonial and Women’s rights activist Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, was also a key influence. Ultimately, Fela’s own political development was moulded by this rich intellectual climate permeating Africa, but a trip to the US also played a key role in the radicalisation of Fela Kuti.

In Ajibola Bodunrin’s wonderful 2019 piece Thinking African In America, we learn that in 1969, Fela and his band embarked upon a ten month stay in the US that proved central in the growth of his political consciousness. At the time, the Black Power movement in the US was in full swing and Fela couldn’t help but be inspired by the revolutionary fire that was in the air. Bodunrin explains, “One revolutionary who played a major role in the enlightenment of Fela Kuti is the singer and former Black panther, Sandra Izsadore (formerly known as Sandra Smith). Sandra opened her home to Fela, While he was stranded in Los Angeles and they had a very close relationship. This was a time where black Americans were looking to Africa for answers to their own questions and Izsadore thought that as an African, Fela would help her gain a better understanding of her history and culture. She would talk to him about ideas such as black nationalism and Pan-Africanism as if he had already been aware of those concepts. During their conversations, Fela would rarely speak. He would just listen to the things that Sandra was saying.”

Having had his mind opened to the foundational works of the Black radical tradition, Fela Kuti returned to Nigeria, rechristened his band Africa 70 and embarked on a decade-long run of albums whose quality, ambition and impact are nearly peerless. By the end of the decade, Fela Kuti and Roy Ayers were both international superstars, but their music and personal lives could not have been more different. An outspoken critic of the Nigerian government, Fela Kuti never wasted an opportunity to blast Nigerian officials for their oppressive, neo-colonial tactics. The conflict reached a horrifying climax on 18 February 1977, when the Nigerian government sent over 1000 soldiers to storm Kalakuta Republic, the autonomous community that Fela had built to house his family. A brutal and deadly attack, Nigerian soldiers killed Fela’s mother and burnt the compound to the ground. In response to this horrific act, Fela’s records at the time took on a fierce and confrontational character. More than four decades after the fact, albums like No Agreement, Sorrow, Tears, And Blood and Unknown Soldier still burn with righteous indignation. While Fela was fighting government repression and honing his music into a sharply tipped instrument of revolutionary anger, Ayers found popular success throughout the 70s with his slick fusion of soul and jazz. In 1976, he broke through with the single “Everybody Loves The Sunshine”. A gorgeous piano and synth-driven tune, “Sunshine” is topped off with vocals from Ayers and Debbie Darby, whose performance takes the song's lyrics about basking in the sun to near-spiritual heights. The song became an instant classic and cemented Ayers’s position as the biggest jazz crossover artist of the decade. Although their career trajectories and personal lives were radically different, both Ayers’s and Fela’s music shared a deep love of the people of the African diaspora. This shared cultural bond brought these two giants together to close the 70s with a monumental collaboration.

As Roy Ayers explains to The Wire, 1979 found him and his band embarking upon a journey across the Atlantic to Nigeria to tour the country with Fela and Africa 70. Before the two met, Ayers was already a fan. “I actually heard Fela’s music for the first time playing in a nightclub that I was in, I cannot recall the name of the club now. In a nutshell I was going to Nigeria to perform with the understanding that I would be touring along with Fela.”

When Ayers and his entourage touched down in Nigeria, the band embarked on a three week, five city tour throughout the country. Taking up residence in Phonodisk Studios, located in the town of Ijebu Igbo, Ayers and Fela recorded Music Of Many Colours, an album made up of two side-length compositions that went on to serve as anthems for the movement of global Black liberation. The album opens with “Africa – Center Of The World”, a groovy, midtempo jam that opens with Tunde Brown’s taut rhythm guitar and Fela playing a simple keyboard melody. Africa 70’s six piece brass section introduces the tune’s regal chorus, before the entire band settle in, allowing Ayers to solo. His playing here is strong, flowery and controlled all at once. Nearly nine minutes into the song’s expansive hypnotic groove, Fela’s voice enters the proceedings, backed by a chorus of Alake, Tokunbo, Ihiase, Fehintola and Folake Anikulapo-Kuti. Taking aim at white supremacy itself, Fela openly mocks western civilisation, deeming it as being built on “wrong information”, “wrong education” and “ignorance”, challenging any assumptions about the superiority of Europeans and re-centering (no pun intended) not only the geographic position of the continent, but the intellectual and cultural genius of its people. From here in Fela’s words shift focus from admonishing the west toward embracing the diaspora. “All I need to say is set your minds to Africa. Africa, the centre of the world! Check your world map and see!”.

The cut reaches a thrilling climax when Fela and chorus call out to the diaspora directly, “Black people all over the world, set your minds to Africa! African Americans, set your minds to Africa! African West Indians...Africans in Europe, set your minds to Africa! We need Pan-Africanism!”. Ayers tells me, ““Africa – Center of The World” means just that, it is in fact at the centre of the world and I felt the need at that time to vocalise that seeing as I was also there in Africa at the time.”

If “Africa – Center Of The World” wasn’t enough, the album’s B side drove home Ayers’s and Fela’s message of pan-diasporic solidarity. Written and arranged by the team of Ubiquity vocalist Wayne Garfield and Carl Clay (founder of the legendary Black Spectrum Theatre in Jamaica Queens) “2000 Blacks Got To Be Free” had been already introduced into the Ubiquity songbook years before Ayers and Fela met in Nigeria. The version of the tune that Ayers and Africa 70 laid down during those sessions at Phonodisk is an undeniably funky uptempo jam that exemplifies the spirit of Ayers’s and Fela’s collaboration. Predicting that by the year 2000, Black people around the world will be free of persecution, “2000 Blacks Got To Be Free” is groovy and celebratory, offering a look at the joyful side of revolution, the joy of coming together in the fight for liberation. With a big, shouting brass line, a driving four-on-the-floor backbeat and William Allen’s nimble, looping bass providing a steady foundation, Ayers takes over the vocal duties. He opens the tune with a subdued spoken intro that articulates his hopes for diasporic unity. “Like many many other Black men, I have a dream….I have a vision with that dream. My dream and my vision is the coming together of Black minds within this universe that we live in”. As the band heat up behind him, Ayers’s plea grows stronger, urging Black folks to honour and remember our history while looking toward brighter days: “Better think about your future, y’all, and don’t forget your past cuz all the things we’ve lived before cannot be lived again and all our people’s tears cannot be shed again!”. Over the course of nearly 19 minutes, Ubiquity and Africa 70 completely meld together as one. The music they’re playing coalesces into a living embodiment of Pan-Africanism. African-American funk, soul and jazz soloing met with traditional African rhythms and call and response is a shining example of a cross-cultural dialogue that has been occurring between people of African descent for centuries. Ayers explains that this practice of combining jazz with West African music was a homage to the music’s shared cultural heritage: “Jazz is part of our historical experience. The utilisation of various instruments ie the percussion instruments, the horns and for me the xylophone have been used by our ancestors.” As the song climbs toward an ecstatic climax, Ayers drives home his message, imploring us to “Think about 2000 Black, think about unity, think about you and me, think about righteousness, think about positive vibes, think about togetherness!”.

In the four decades since Music Of Many Colours was released, one would be hard pressed to say that any part of Ayers’s and Fela’s vision has been fully realised. In the early 1990s, Pan-Africanism and Black consciousness saw a brief resurgence in popular culture spearheaded by “conscious” rap acts like Queen Latifah, X-Clan, and Poor Righteous Teachers as well as Spike Lee’s popular early films Do The Right Thing and Malcolm X. By this time, the practical ambitions of some of Pan-Africanism’s most prominent exponents (Sankara, Lumumba, Nkrumah etc) had been thwarted by decades of US and Europe-backed coups, interventions and assassinations. In 2020, the desire for Black liberation remains in both the US and Nigeria, even if the rallying cry has changed. In the first week of October 2020, a video of a young Nigerian man being shot and killed by officers of Nigeria’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) went viral, sparking protests throughout the country. In response to these mass protests, Nigerian police have fired upon protesters, reportedly resulting in multiple deaths and sparking worldwide outrage. Despite the fact that the pressure caused by these protests has resulted in Nigerian officials vowing to disband SARS, many Nigerian’s have called for deeper systemic change that will put an end to police brutality in the country. Whether it is in Nigeria, the US, Europe, South America, the Caribbean and beyond, racism and anti-blackness remains a global scourge. Music Of Many Colours distills centuries of hopes and dreams into a brief monument of joyful musical resistance. The themes that Fela’s and Ayers’ music addresses, as well as the feeling that it conjures, are still relevant today, broadcasting from a distant time when two of Africa’s greatest sons came together to craft a powerful utopian vision of freedom for Black people everywhere.

In light of the recent developments surrounding the protests in Nigeria, Diasporans Against SARS have set up a fundraising page to help those affected.