Fela Kuti & Africa '70 - Yellow Fever

Fela Kuti & Africa '70 - Yellow Fever

With artwork designed by Lemi Ghariokwu, who created the cover art for around half of Fela's albums. Yellow Fever was originally released in 1976, during Fela's extraordinarily prolific 1975-77 purple period, when he released 24 albums in Nigeria alone. The title track is one of Fela's defining masterpieces. Sung in Broken English, the language he adopted in order to make his words understood beyond Yoruba speakers

The title track, “Yellow Fever”, is a scathing criticism of post-colonial Nigerians who cannot shake their “colonial mentality.” Fela rails on women who bleach their skin as an act of beauty, contemptuously adding that, despite what they think, it only makes them less attractive. The second track of the album is the notorious “Na Poi” (loosely translating to “things collide”) which was banned by the Nigerian Broadcasting Company for its explicit, socially shocking sexual references. As Fela jams out, the song becomes a veritable “how-to” guide to sex, including allusions to motion and lubrication, among other taboo details.