Released 31 March 2015 on Flying Buddha (catalog no. To get a taste of just what Fela sounds like in the hands of a truly reverent fan, take the band’s song “Jekyll” for a spin. Choose Your Weapon, an Album by Hiatus Kaiyote. The band’s second album, Choose Your Weapon, is one of the decade’s most sonically adventurous albums and here’s the kicker, Nai Palm has actually come out to confirm that one of the album’s major influences was Fela’s life and music. They are Australia’s most successful R&B export, being the only band from the continent to get nominated for not one but two Grammy awards for best R&B performances with two albums that have received global critical acclaim and mainstream success. But none have interpreted Fela’s influences quite like Hiatus Kaiyote.įor the uninitiated (and seriously, what are you doing with your life), Hiatus Kaiyote is an Australian Future Soul band started by Naomi ‘Nai Palm’ Saalfied. hold you like the strength you bless to me. We fly and rock together without hearts upon. There is the critically acclaimed broadway musical, several hundred covers on Youtube and new tribute bands popping up every day. I know my darling, I will follow you until the sunrise under the desert sky. But it would be naive to assume that his influence starts and ends in Africa. His music has been sampled by Timaya and Tuface, his lyrics have popped up in songs by Olamide and Terry G, his songs have been covered by Falana and Somi in her spectacular The Lagos Music Salon. There is no contemporary Nigerian musician who isn’t inspired by, or doesn’t eventually get compared to Fela. His music has endured three decades and the man has become a legend all over the world.

Fela’s brand of afrobeats revolutionary but not forceful, enlightening but not preachy, and danceable but not brainless is still unrivalled till today.

Some by his style, some by his unique sense of political activism, and most by his genre-defining music. The Melbourne jazz/R&B/future-soul ensemble began writing their third album, Mood Valiant, in 2018, three years after the Grammy-nominated Choose Your Weapon, which featured. Everyone, and we mean everyone, has been inspired by Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Things should change and evolve, and music is an extension of that, of the continuity of life, Hiatus Kaiyote leader Nai Palm tells Apple Music.

Hiatus kaiyote by fire lyrics