World music icon and highly influential Afro-beat originator Fela Kuti is perhaps second only to Bob Marley as one of the most important politically active artists of the late 20^th century. A bold statement, surely, but the breadth and content of Fela’s discography speaks for itself, and remnants of the sound he created can be found, directly or indirectly, in everyone from Missy Elliott and the Roots to the Chemical Brothers and Rage Against the Machine.

While the Nigerian musician/activist died in 1997, his legacy is as popular as ever. A good deal of his 70-plus albums have been available in reissued form for some time, and now a new CD/DVD combo of Fela’s work will be available, starting tomorrow (March 22), from Wrasse Records.

The Best of Fela Kuti contains two discs of the classic Afro-beat tunes that deftly mixed traditional African highlife music with the modern edge of James Brown’s funk and the expansiveness of John Coltrane’s exploratory jazz. But the real gem of the package is the accompanying DVD, Music Is the Weapon, a 53-minute documentary filmed in 1982 in the artist’s home base of Lagos, Nigeria. The movie captures Fela on stage at his Shrine nightclub and at home at his Kalakuta Republic compound, which Fela himself declared to be his own independent nation in opposition to the oppressive Nigerian government at the time.

Performances in the film include previously unreleased versions of the tracks "ITT," "Power Show," "Army Arrangement" and "Authority Stealing." Like the majority of Fela’s music, most tunes often eclipse the 15-minute mark, sometimes taking up an entire album side. As a result, The Best of sometimes contains either edited versions or the second halves of two-part compositions.
The full Kuti collection:

Disc One:
"Lady"
"Shankara"
Gentlemen" (edit version)
"Water No Get Enemy (edit version)
"Zombie"
"Sorrow Tears and Blood"
"No Agreement (Part 2)"

Disc Two:
"Roforofo Fight"
"Shuffering and Shmiling (Part 2)"
"Coffin for Head of State (Part 2)"
"ITT (Part 2)"
"Army Arrangement" (Part 2)
"O.D.O.O." (edit version)

Music Is the Weapon DVD:
"Who Is Fela?"
"Out of Africa"
"Lagos"
"A Night at the Shrine"
"Kalakuta Republic"
"The Queens"
"The Pope in Lagos"
"A Shrine Ceremony"
"Women"
"Kalakuta Under Attack"
"Prison"
"International Thief Thief"

-Greg Camphire