Terry Gross

FESTAC was supposed to be a joyous festival.

Basically, I think, like uniting black people from around the world.

And this festival of joy is run by a dictator.

So Fela was put on the planning committee and then he made a list of demands.

Tell us about a couple of the demands.

So what's the short version of how Fela's counter-festival to Fesdak led to the burning of his house?

The military threw his mother during this raid out a second-story window.

Amazingly, she survived, first in a coma, and she was never herself again.

She died a year later.

It's so horrible to think about.

And Fela wrote a song that's basically about his mother and being thrown out the window.

So I want to play an excerpt of that.

It's called Unknown Soldier.

So that was Fela doing his song, Unknown Soldier, about his mother being thrown out the second story window by the military who raided the compound and burned Fela's home down.

So after his mother dies, it transforms him.

He misses her so much.

She was the person who really supported his vision of change.

And like you said earlier, he lost a lot of his following because people didn't want to be exposed to this kind of brutality and death.

And his music changed.

He became more spiritual.