The Theme of Cultural Imperialism in Fela Kuti's Song, Gentleman

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Fela Anikulapo Kuti is, no doubt, one of the finest musicians to have come out of Africa. Born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, Fela is famously acknowledged as the father of Afro Beat, a genre of music which evolved when African musicians began combining elements of traditional musical styles such as jùjú music and highlife with American funk.

Permit me to say that Fela was no ordinary musician; he was a prophet, an activist, a fighter, and a revolutionary who used music as a tool of social engineering. In the 1960s and 1970s, Fela released a number of songs which condemned military dictatorship, maladministration, imperialism, neocolonialism, religious dogmatism, injustice, apathied, etc.

Specifically, in 1973 Fela released a song which he titled Gentleman. In the thrilling song, an obviously frustrated Fela discusses cultural imperialism, lamenting how post-colonial Africans are being brainwashed into accepting that traditional African values are inferior to European values. Fela mysteriously insists that he is not a gentleman because, it appears, being a gentleman at the time requires trading traditional African values for European values. Fela sees the rapid erosion of African cultural values as imperialistic and refuses to join in the bandwagon, even if it will require him standing alone.

To express his views, Fela enigmatically opens his epic song, which is the subject of this article, by telling us in pidgin English that he is no gentleman under whatever guise. Hear him:

I no be gentleman at all
I no be gentleman at all
I no be gentleman at all o
I no be gentleman at all, at all

Afterwards, Fela tells us who he is; he says he is an African man. He sees being African as being original, being true to one's innermost self.

I no be gentleman at all o
I be Africa man original

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Fela then contrasts being a gentleman, that is, trying to embrace European cultural values and being an African man and finds, delightfully, that the latter is better and more convenient. He then mocks Africans who have adopted the culinary specifications of Europeans at the expense of their own satisfaction. Fela sings in his first verse:

Them call you, make you come chop
You chop small, you say you belle full
You say you be gentleman, you go hungry
You go suffer, you go quench
Me I no be gentleman like that.

In the third and last verse of the song, Fela mocks Africans who ritually imitate the European way of dressing, even though the dresses do not, in reality, fit into the hot African climatic conditions. Fela believes, and of course rightly so, that dresses should be dictated by environmental and cultural conditions; not by the influence of imperialist powers; not by the peddlers of Eurocentrism. Fela refuses to wear the badge of gentlemanliness if it will require him to do the things which are, by nature, inconvenient. Fela cries out:

Africa hot, I like am so
I know what to wear, but my friends don't know
Him put him socks, him put him shoe
Him put him pant, him put him singlet
Him put him trouser, him put him shirt
Him put him tie, him put him coat
Him come cover all with him hat
Him be gentleman, him go sweat, all over
Him go faint right down, him go smell like shit
Him go piss for body, him no go know
Me I no be gentleman like that.

Fela's Gentleman is a clarion call to Africans and other people who were colonized all over the world to never bury their traditional cultural values beneath the sand of cultural imperialism. Fela stands tall and courageously predicts severe consequences for those who betray their cultural identity as a precondition for becoming a gentleman.

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