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Radiolab

Fela Kuti: Enter the Shrine

with Michael Veal, Lisa Lindsay, John Darton, Nina Darton-Johns, Stephanie Shonikan, Boide Omujola, Dele Shoshimi, Duro Ikugenio, Saul Williams, Brian Eno, Lemmy Gerialkou, Marilyn Nance, Lorraine Adam-Austin, Moses Uchunu

Published November 28, 2025
View Show Notes

About This Episode

Radiolab hosts Latif Nasser and Lulu Miller welcome back Jad Abumrad, who explains how he became obsessed with Nigerian musician and Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti and turned that obsession into a 12-part podcast series called "Fela Kuti, Fear No Man." They play Chapter 3, "Enter the Shrine," which explores Fela's Lagos club the Shrine, the sensory and social atmosphere around it, and how the structure of his long, hypnotic songs leads listeners into a trance-like state that makes his political messages land deeply. The episode closes with a preview of the series' upcoming installment about Fela's mother and her own extraordinary, music-fueled activism.

Topics Covered

Music career Personal narrative Cultural inheritance Afrobeat music Political activism through music Nigerian politics Corruption in Nigeria Trance and altered states War and empire

Disclaimer: We provide independent summaries of podcasts and are not affiliated with or endorsed in any way by any podcast or creator. All podcast names and content are the property of their respective owners. The views and opinions expressed within the podcasts belong solely to the original hosts and guests and do not reflect the views or positions of Summapod.

Quick Takeaways

  • Jad Abumrad created a 12-part series on Fela Kuti after becoming fascinated by how Fela's music combined artistic innovation with mass political mobilization.
  • Fela's club, the Shrine, was located in a dense, working-class neighborhood of Lagos and functioned as the epicenter of his movement and an alternate reality from the surrounding dictatorship.
  • Witnesses describe the Shrine as a smoky, crowded, almost otherworldly space where Fela's marathon performances induced a hypnotic, trance-like immersion in the music.
  • The structure of Fela's songs uses long, stubbornly repeating grooves (ostinatos) that gradually layer and build, pulling listeners from impatience into hyper-focused trance.
  • Once listeners are in that open, heightened state, Fela introduces lyrics that address corruption, global politics, and Nigerian history in direct, uncompromising language.
  • Some listeners credit Fela's music with making them "see the light," sparking political awareness and restoring moral outrage that had been numbed by pervasive corruption.
  • Fela explicitly described his music as a weapon and a tool for informing people, with the informational content being as important as the sound itself.
  • The episode hints at a broader exploration of cycles of time, history, violence, and resistance in later parts of the series, including a forthcoming story about a rebellion led by Fela's mother.

Podcast Notes

Introduction and Jad Abumrad's return to Radiolab

Hosts introduce themselves and welcome back Jad

Latif Nasser and Lulu Miller open the show and identify it as Radiolab from WNYC[0:49]
They welcome Jad Abumrad back to the show and joke about his absence and age[0:59]

What Jad has been doing since handing off Radiolab

Jad says after he proudly handed over the show, he became a professor at Vanderbilt[1:17]
• He describes himself as a "kind of a fake professor" teaching storytelling and interviewing
Alongside teaching, he has been making experimental music and theater projects[1:35]
• He mentions a large project in Brooklyn launched in May about the Brooklyn Navy Yard as "America's war-making engine"
• He describes that project as imagining journalism sung by 60 women

Genesis of the Fela Kuti podcast project

First conversation about doing a podcast on Fela

Jad recalls an early conversation with his old friend Ben Adair, who has been making audio stories as long as he has[1:59]
Ben approached Jad asking if he wanted to do a podcast about Fela Kuti[2:10]
• Fela is introduced as a Nigerian musician who invented a whole new genre of music, started a political movement, and nearly toppled a government just with music

Jad's initial reaction and limited prior knowledge of Fela

Jad says he thought it sounded interesting and said yes in the casual way you agree to things you assume may never happen[2:29]
He clarifies he was not saying yes insincerely, but he doubted he was really doing another podcast[2:44]
He knew Fela mainly as the record that comes on at a party that really starts the party, but did not know the backstory[2:52]
• He began making phone calls about Fela and "just didn't stop," implying the project took off from there

Overview of the Fela Kuti series and why it matters to Jad

Basic premise of the series

Jad explains the series will look at the life and music of Fela Kuti, also named as Ali Kulapo Kuti[3:10]
• He notes Fela's nicknames: father of Afrobeat, the black president, and the chief priest
Lulu says she had never heard of Fela until Jad became obsessed with him and spent about three years on the project[3:36]

Evidence of Fela's influence on admired artists

Jad says one of the first discoveries is that many people he loves also love Fela[3:54]
• He cites actor and writer Ayo Adebri from "The Bear," who on a red carpet named Fela Kuti as a musician she has a cult-like fascination with
Questlove is quoted saying Fela is the figure whose story resonates with modern America and American hip-hop culture[4:22]
• Questlove highlights Fela's passion, pain, strength, and need to get his message out; Jay-Z and Beyonce are named among those who value him
Jad says this admiration raises a question for him: what are they hearing, and can he hear it and make others hear it?[4:38]

Scope of the "Fela Kuti, Fear No Man" series

The series is described as a 12-part series titled "Fela Kuti, Fear No Man" available to listen to now[4:46]
Lulu asks what drove Jad to make the series, beyond the fact that people clearly love Fela's music[4:54]

Jad's personal question about the point of music and art

Jad says he looks at the current world and feels it is insanity, leading him to wonder what the point of making music is if you love music[5:22]
• He connects this to the "streaming hellscape" where artists are treated as content creators who sell content to platforms like Spotify for very low pay, citing "0.01 cents" as an example
He says Fela answers the question of what the point of making music and art is[6:03]
• For Jad, Fela shows that music can be a catalyst for a political movement that mobilizes tens of thousands of young people ready to march in the streets
• He notes that with music alone, Fela almost toppled a dictatorship, demonstrating art can be used to try to make and change the world

Question about the mechanism: how the music itself changes the world

Lulu asks how the music functions in a political way, beyond the lyrics, and what the mechanism is[6:12]
Jad says the political aspects of Fela's music were not just lyrical but baked into the grammar, structure, and impact sequence of the music itself[6:28]
• He emphasizes that the politics are in the notes, below the notes, and in how the music is structured to create certain impacts
He sets up that the upcoming episode will first give the experience of the music and then explain that experience[7:13]

Setting up Chapter 3: The Shrine

Context of earlier chapters in the series

Lulu explains that in the first episode they met a bandmate of Fela's and saw the story through his eyes[6:59]
The second episode traced Fela's evolution into a revolutionary[7:04]
The third one they are about to play is where they really get into the music itself[7:09]

Introducing the Shrine as Fela's club and movement hub

Jad explains the episode is called "The Shrine" and clarifies that the Shrine is Fela's club in Lagos[7:23]
• He says the Shrine was the epicenter of Fela's movement and that they interviewed many people who described what it was like to be there
A voice describes being in the Shrine as feeling like the music was inside and all around, creating a hypnotized state where you are "all inside the music"[7:57]
Another voice references Fela's line "The secret of life is to have no fear" and frames the Shrine as a place where people wake up[8:19]

Formal title of the chapter being played

The segment is identified as "Fela Kuti, Fear No Man, Chapter 3, Enter the Shrine"[8:25]

Lagos, the Shrine, and their political geography

Fela's explosive return to Nigeria and musical outpouring

Jad fills in gaps starting in 1969: after an experience with Sandra Isidore in Los Angeles, Fela returned to Nigeria radicalized[14:27]
• Upon returning, he took the country by storm and became the massive star that he is known to be
Between 1973 and 1979, Fela released an intense stream of music, estimated at 27 records in about six years[14:56]
• Jad characterizes this period as a "fire hose" of music with one hit after another

Location of the Shrine within Lagos

Early in this period, Fela set up a club called the Shrine[15:09]
Jad explains Lagos is the most populous city in Africa, located on the Atlantic coast with a mainland curving around a bay and two major islands connected by bridges[15:20]
• On the islands, the soundscape includes peacocks and golf, with lush, beautiful surroundings
• On the mainland, especially in places like Mushin, the density of people is described as breathtaking
Audio from a market in Mushin illustrates a poor working-class neighborhood with a million people in seven square miles[16:23]
Jad notes Fela chose this mainland neighborhood, not the island, as the spot for the Shrine[16:28]
• By building the Shrine there, Fela was effectively declaring himself the voice of the people he called the "sufferheads"

Modern visit to the Shrine site and lingering sense of protection

When Jad and his team visited the Shrine in 2024, at night it resembled what Michael Veal had described from 1992: people packed in the street in a jammed mob[16:47]
• The Shrine has closed, reopened, and moved several times, but the scene remains similar in character
About 50 food sellers lined the long block in front of the Shrine, and people were smoking weed openly[17:05]
• Their fixer in Lagos told them that even 28 years after Fela's death, this was the one place where open cannabis use could happen despite heavy prison sentences elsewhere in Nigeria
A seller described Fela as "life after death" and "evergreen," suggesting an enduring presence[17:25]
• When asked if he felt Fela still protects the street and place, the seller answered yes and gestured toward police standing at the end of the block, as if on the other side of an invisible line

Kalakuta Republic and the Shrine as a sovereign space

Declaring independence within Nigeria

Historian Lisa Lindsay notes that Fela declared both the Shrine and his nearby compound, the Kalakuta Republic, to be sovereign nations within Nigeria[17:57]
• She likens this to the Vatican's relationship to Italy, where Fela positioned himself as a country unto himself

Contrast between dictatorship outside and alternate universe inside

Lisa visited the Shrine in the early 1990s and recalls the surrounding context of a dictatorship that was shooting people[18:36]
• The government held public executions of criminals and dissidents on the beach, and soldiers patrolled the streets, making it unsafe to be out at night
She describes walking into the Shrine as entering an alternate universe compared with the fear outside[19:41]
Inside, the Shrine felt like a warehouse space with everyone smoking, including giant joints described as the size of police megaphones[19:19]
• At that time, people could receive 10-year jail sentences for a half-smoked joint, yet a massive cloud of smoke hung at the top of the club
• The atmosphere was hot, humid, crowded, with people dancing and many stoned; Lisa emphasizes the contrast with the fear outside

Fela's performance ritual and showmanship at the Shrine

John Darton's eyewitness account of Fela preparing to perform

Journalist John Darton, who covered Fela for The New York Times in the mid-1970s, observed Fela getting ready for a 1 a.m. show at the Calakuta Republic[19:59]
• His wife, journalist Nina Darton-Johns, reads his description of Fela's pregame ritual
Fela spooned out liberal doses of a glittery, gooey marijuana extract nicknamed "Fela Gold" from a jar[20:40]
Full-length mirrors were held up by two young boys while he slowly put on skin-tight sequined pants and a white shirt open to the waist, arranging strings of beads[20:54]
Six bodyguards gathered as he said "Let's go" and moved outside to a crowd of several hundred who had waited for hours and were clinging to barbed wire to glimpse him[21:13]
• The crowd chanted "Fela, Fela" from the dark as he appeared
John and Nina note Fela's flair for showmanship, including an occasion when he arrived on a donkey[21:44]
• Drivers would get out of their cars, raise fists, and shout his name when they saw him
John says he has never seen a performer as dynamic as Fela and found him "absolutely incredible" on stage[21:55]

Physical layout and symbolic elements of the Shrine

Jad describes the Shrine as an open-air club that fits about 500 people[22:04]
• There is a tin roof over the stage but no roof over the dance floor
On either side of the stage are four Studio 54-style cages where dancers perform[22:11]
An altar to one side held pictures of Fela's mother, Malcolm X, and Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana[22:24]
• Jad says the club itself is less interesting to him than what happened to people when they were inside it

Experiential accounts of trance and immersion at the Shrine

Analogy to psychedelic experiences

Jad compares people's reports about the Shrine to how friends talk about life-changing psilocybin (mushroom) experiences[22:38]
• He notes that psychedelic experiences can be explained in neurochemical terms, as rewiring the brain, but similar descriptions are being applied to Fela's music without drugs
He says many interviewees described listening to Fela at the Shrine as having the same effect, which is harder to explain but which he will attempt to do[22:56]

Narrative re-entry into the Shrine from attendees' perspectives

Listeners are invited to notice what they pay attention to as the experience unfolds and how that changes over time[23:24]
Around 1 a.m., Fela arrives on a donkey and takes the stage with about 35 musicians to begin a riff that will last most of the night[23:27]
Multiple voices describe their experiences: feeling the music inside them, being hypnotized, and engaging in a kind of hypnotic dancing and listening[23:46]
• One person recalls being lost in the music, surrounded by people in a mist of smoke, and feeling in a different world
Speakers describe the music as a spiral or swirl: a small cycle that builds and gets bigger the more it circulates[24:35]
• The repeated cycles are said to "get bigger" and "get bigger," emphasizing a sense of expansion over time

Ostinato, enchantment, and being captured by the groove

A voice explains that Fela starts the music to enchant, using repetitive patterns whose power lies in the musical ostinato as an enchanting strategy[25:37]
Listeners describe feeling captured by the groove and recognizing it as an amazing new form of music[26:11]
• One person says it felt like a field of sound that sits there for a long time and that you can explore and live in, more like a place than a song
Throughout, the rhythm section keeps going relentlessly, underscoring the persistence of the groove[26:29]
• The repetition makes entering the music feel like entering a distinct place that you inhabit
Someone notes the music is so compelling and "nasty" that you have to dance, but the long duration of songs (30-40 minutes) signals that Fela has a lot to say[27:13]

Phase shift: from groove to lyrical revelation

Impact of Fela's voice entering after a long instrumental build

After about 30 or 40 minutes of groove, Fela suddenly starts singing[28:12]
Listeners recall being shocked when the voice came in, exclaiming that there were words too[28:50]
• The lyrics include lines like "If you like it, good; if you don't like, you hang; if you hang, you go die for nothing," which confront listeners directly
John Darton notes that Fela sings in a gravelly, low-pitched voice and addresses topics others ignored, such as the United Nations, Thatcher, and Reagan[29:05]
• He describes the performance as a kind of history lesson, covering issues not found in newspapers or columns
Another observer says they could see ideas floating from the stage like thought balloons and then sinking into people's skulls[29:29]
Several people describe feeling like they "saw the light" and wondered where their minds had been all their lives[29:58]
• They express surprise at learning so much about Nigeria and history through Fela that they had not learned in school
Listeners describe a lightbulb effect and a moment of introspection, realizing they had not been as attuned as they should have been[30:14]

Identifying and crediting the chorus of voices

List of scholars, musicians, and artists whose voices were used

Jad notes that, in addition to Michael Veal and John Darton, the voices heard include Stephanie Shonikan and Boide Omujola, professors of ethnomusicology[30:37]
Afrobeat musicians Dele Shoshimi and Duro Ikugenio, activist and musician Saul Williams, producer Brian Eno, artist Lemmy Gerialkou, photographer Marilyn Nance, and designer Lorraine Adam-Austin are also credited[30:57]
Advisor Moses Uchunu, a professor of history and Jad's colleague at Vanderbilt, is named as one of the last voices heard[30:59]

Moses Uchunu on corruption, numbness, and moral outrage

How Fela's music reactivated a sense of outrage

Moses says he grew up in Nigeria hearing about corruption figures moving from thousands of Naira to millions, then billions, and now trillions[31:54]
• As a child, he and others could not fathom how a single person could physically move thousands of Naira and imagined boxes and cars full of cash
Over time, the increasing scale of corruption had a numbing and dulling effect, erasing the shock and moral outrage he once felt[32:07]
He says what Fela's songs did was bring that original sense of moral outrage back to life[32:18]
• Jad paraphrases that Fela's music reminded Moses of the insanity he had been "sane-washed" into accepting as normal

Structural analysis of Fela's music: phases and trance

From musical structure to phenomenological structure

Jad notes that music is about structuring relationships between notes, chords, and melodies, but here there is structure on another level: a phenomenological structure of experience[32:53]
He describes the first 15 minutes as loops and ostinatos going round and round[33:13]
• He explains that "ostinato" in Italian means stubborn, pointing to how the loops stubbornly repeat

Phase one: repetition, grounding, and impatience

Initially, the repetition can feel grounding, but then listeners naturally want change and a next section[33:17]
Jad likens the restless desire for novelty to what Buddhists call the monkey mind, which craves distraction to avoid sitting with one's own thoughts[33:27]
• The music refuses to provide conventional changes, instead only building by adding layers and instruments piece by piece

Phase two: noticing interlocking parts and entering trance

After a few minutes, there is a mysterious shift where listeners stop wanting change and begin noticing details in the groove[33:47]
Jad describes the ostinatos as machine gears that interlock without grinding, fitting into gaps and holes in each other's patterns[34:09]
• He points out call and response between conga and shaker, and three guitar lines spinning like gears under a higher-level clock
He characterizes this as a trance state that is actually hyper-focus, not dullness, with listeners hearing things they have never heard before[34:34]
• He attributes this to neurons being rewired so that listeners become open in a new way

Phase three: the voice of God and political messages

At the moment when listeners are most open, Fela begins to sing, his voice described as booming like the voice of God[34:49]
Because of the trance state, the audience really hears what he is saying and ideas sink deeply into them[34:54]
As the final piece of the progression, he offers a new conception of what their lives can be, which they can then literally dance to[35:11]

Fela's own description of his music as a weapon and tool

Interview from 1988 about music as a tool for information

In a 1988 interview, Fela says that music is a small part of his main preoccupation but is effective like a weapon[36:15]
When asked if his music is a tool, Fela replies that it is a weapon that allows him to talk when he has the chance[36:14]
• He says he considers music effective as a way to inform people and that his music serves as an attraction to convey information
He emphasizes that the informational side of the music is what is important[36:27]

Fela's ideas about time and cycles

In the same interview, he talks about circles and says that if someone tells him 20 years is a long time, he would say no[36:44]
He states that time is meaningless unless you understand what it is about and that there are times for everything[36:53]

Foreshadowing cycles of history and future episodes

Extending the idea of cycles beyond the music

Jad says the idea of cycles will become not just about the music but about cycles of history, violence, and resistance[37:06]
He promises to follow the interlocking ostinatos of Fela's groove across time and space into the deep past[37:15]
• He mentions an incredible story of a rebellion that deposed a king and created a sound still echoing today on the streets of Lagos and the world
He says that story is coming up next in the series[37:58]

Radiolab outro and preview of upcoming episodes in the series

Hosts' reactions to the series

Lulu thanks Jad and calls the series incredible and a magnum opus[37:39]
• Latif jokes that there will be another magnum opus because Jad will keep going despite trying to leave, and both praise how special and amazing the series is
Jad says this might be the last one, leaving some uncertainty[37:51]

Where the series is going next and focus on Fela's mother

Lulu asks where else the series is going and what it is called, to which Jad reiterates the title "Fela Kuti Fear No Man"[38:01]
Jad says the next episode is his favorite and is about Fela's mom[38:32]
• He describes Fela's mother as so extraordinary that it made him question why the focus was on Fela and suggests one could do a 12-episode series about her and one episode about him
He notes that what she accomplished was "bananas" and also achieved through music[40:01]

Title of the upcoming episode about Fela's mother

When asked for the title, Jad says the next episode is called "Vengeance of the Vagina Head"[40:14]
• He clarifies this title was not invented by the producers but was what newspapers at the time called the revolt she led
Lulu says that title will serve as a tease for listeners[40:45]

Lessons Learned

Actionable insights and wisdom you can apply to your business, career, and personal life.

1

Art can be deliberately structured to guide people from distraction into deep focus and openness, making difficult truths and political messages more likely to be heard and absorbed.

Reflection Questions:

  • • When in your own life have you felt guided from distraction into deep focus by a particular piece of art, music, or storytelling?
  • • How could you design your next presentation, product, or message so that its structure gradually prepares people to really hear the most important point?
  • • What is one message you want others to absorb more deeply, and how could you alter the pacing and build-up of how you deliver it this week?
2

Repetition and gradual layering, like Fela's ostinatos, can transform impatience into insight by forcing attention onto subtle patterns and relationships that usually go unnoticed.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What tasks or practices in your life feel boringly repetitive but might reveal useful patterns if you paid closer attention to them?
  • • How might adding small, deliberate variations to a repeated routine (in work, training, or learning) increase your awareness of what really matters?
  • • Where could you commit to a simple, repeated practice for the next month to see what new insights emerge only after the initial boredom passes?
3

Creating a dedicated physical or social space, like the Shrine, allows people to experience the values and promises of a movement in the present, rather than only hearing abstract ideas.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What kinds of spaces-physical or virtual-currently shape your sense of what is possible in your work or community?
  • • How could you design a gathering, environment, or ritual that lets people "try on" the change you want to see, even for a few hours?
  • • Who could you collaborate with this month to create a small space or event that embodies the culture or future you care about?
4

Repeated exposure to corruption, dysfunction, or injustice can numb moral outrage, so we need tools-like honest art or storytelling-to reawaken our sense that what feels normal may actually be insane.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where in your own environment have you started to accept something as "just the way it is" even though it bothered you at first?
  • • How might engaging with a book, film, song, or conversation that names these issues directly change how you feel about them now?
  • • What is one small step you could take this week to question or push back against a situation you have become desensitized to?
5

Claiming symbolic independence, as Fela did with the Shrine and Kalakuta Republic, can be a powerful way to assert alternative values and identities even within an oppressive system.

Reflection Questions:

  • • In what areas of your life do you feel pressured to conform to norms that do not match your values?
  • • How could you symbolically mark out a "sovereign" space-mental, physical, or social-where your own rules and priorities apply?
  • • What is one concrete boundary or declaration you could make this month that signals, to yourself and others, the kind of world you want to live in?

Episode Summary - Notes by Sage

Fela Kuti: Enter the Shrine
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