Terry Gross

To give listeners who aren't familiar with Fela's music, I want to play something that will show the repetition, the layering, and then segue into his most political song that got him into the most trouble, which is called Zombie.

So to set it up, we're going to start with authority stealing.

And this will show you a very compressed version of the layering in his music.

And imagine each of those layers spreading out for like five minutes each or more.

And then we'll segue into Zombie.

That was Authority Stealing, and this is Phelous' song, Zombie.

So tell us why Zombie was so important and dangerous.

Once Fela starts really understanding more about what his music is about, he creates a club called The Shrine.

And it's mobbed.

I mean, once people hear his music, they want to hear more music.

And he creates what he calls the Calakuta Republic, which includes his compound.

And by calling it the Calakuta Republic, it's basically a government-free zone where people smoke marijuana, even though there's like a steep penalty if you're caught smoking.

but it's his compound and it's his free space and they get away with it.

How did he pull that off?

So here's where Fela loses me.

He puts together a group of fantastic women dancers and backup singers, and that's part of the reason why people want to see him perform, because it means seeing these women sing and dance in their elaborate makeup and face paint and costumes.

But he eventually marries 27 of them in one day.

I want to play an excerpt from the podcast in which several people talk about how they felt about the 27 wives.

What do you make of that?

So you spoke to, I think, a couple of the women who used to be in the band and married to him.