YouTube link, Spotify link
Fela Kuti's music is a mix of local languages and Pidgin English (and occasionally gibberish). If you're relying on a lyrics to tell you about the song, you may have trouble. His songs are moods.
Exemplifying this is "Trouble Sleep Yanga Wake Am", a title that just sounds like a bunch of noise. But from the first note, you can tell this tune is a little darker than Fela's other songs. A little slower, more mellow. It's night time song. A 3 AM song.
Picture yourself in a tiny one-room apartment in Lagos, the streetlight blacking out intermittently. You toss and turn, trouble sleep.
Life in the city is hard. Fela knows a guy: just got out of prison, looking for work. Waka waka day and night looking for work, and the police throw him back in jail on a charge of wandering.
The song is depressing, but because this isn't Everlast singing "What It's Like," it's also an enjoyable song. Mellow and relaxing, pairs well with an end-of-day scotch.
Key Lyrics: "When cat sleep, rat go bite him tail"
Bonus: My Morning Jacket did a respectable, and even lengthier cover
Fela Kuti's music is a mix of local languages and Pidgin English (and occasionally gibberish). If you're relying on a lyrics to tell you about the song, you may have trouble. His songs are moods.
Exemplifying this is "Trouble Sleep Yanga Wake Am", a title that just sounds like a bunch of noise. But from the first note, you can tell this tune is a little darker than Fela's other songs. A little slower, more mellow. It's night time song. A 3 AM song.
Picture yourself in a tiny one-room apartment in Lagos, the streetlight blacking out intermittently. You toss and turn, trouble sleep.
Life in the city is hard. Fela knows a guy: just got out of prison, looking for work. Waka waka day and night looking for work, and the police throw him back in jail on a charge of wandering.
The song is depressing, but because this isn't Everlast singing "What It's Like," it's also an enjoyable song. Mellow and relaxing, pairs well with an end-of-day scotch.
Key Lyrics: "When cat sleep, rat go bite him tail"
Bonus: My Morning Jacket did a respectable, and even lengthier cover
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