By the time the Nigerian star Fela Anikulapo-Kuti died in 1997 at age 58, he’d become the Beethoven, Che Guevara, Allen Ginsberg, and Malcolm X of African popular music. His funeral in Lagos drew bigger crowds than the burial ceremonies for the country’s former heads of state. Known simply as Fela to a global legion […]
Category Archive for 'Music'
Umm Kulthum, Mother of Egypt
Posted in Music on Sep 19th, 2018
The reception accorded the death of Umm Kulthum showed how powerful and beloved the Egyptian vocalist had become. With the streets of Cairo lined by several million mourners, Kulthum’s fans took her body from the shoulders of of the official pallbearers and passed her from person to person for the three-hour-long journey to the mosque […]