Fela Kuti Quotes

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Fela Kuti

Profession : Musician

Birth : October 15, 1938

Art itself is knowledge of the spiritual world. Art is information from higher forces, by those who are talented. I'm not jiving.

Fela Kuti

Marriage is a terrible institution, it creates such a regression of the mind.

Fela Kuti

My message was 'Think African. Make schools read African history.'

Fela Kuti

When you start to think of revenge, you start to think of hate. I don't believe in hating people. It's a retrogressive thing.

Fela Kuti

When I was young we weren't even allowed to speak our own languages in school. They called it 'vernacular,' as if only English was the real tongue.

Fela Kuti

Being African didn't mean anything to me until later in my life.

Fela Kuti

I've studied my culture deeply and I'm very aware of my tradition.

Fela Kuti

The African mind has a lot to contribute, not only to world understanding of the arts, but to an understanding of spiritualism. That is the contribution Africa will make to the world of the future - an injection of sanity into the environment of the universe itself.

Fela Kuti

In America we talk about South Africa, but I tell people that apartheid is nothing compared to what is happening in my country where black oppresses black.

Fela Kuti

When I do things, I do things honestly.

Fela Kuti

A police uniform is just a piece of clothing sewn by the same tailors who sew your clothes.

Fela Kuti

Spiritually speaking, every human being has a destiny and a duty to perform.

Fela Kuti

Classical music gives musicians a kick. But African music gives everyone a kick.

Fela Kuti

People thought I was trying to say that women had no say, no rights. I was not saying that. I was saying that women had a role, a duty. When they want to have a say in government - though in Africa they are not expected to do that - they are not discouraged. They can do what they want to do.

Fela Kuti

It is a false belief to think you can own somebody, I'm out of that now. The man should understand he does not own the woman, and the woman should understand she does not own the man.

Fela Kuti

No, I didn't hear about 'Live Aid.' I was in prison, and we were not allowed newspapers in prison.

Fela Kuti

Our prisons are very bad. When I was in Ikoyi prison, people were dying every day. They were carrying bodies out of the prison every day.

Fela Kuti

The art, the greatness of the music, the experience of the music is what I'm about. I think most African artists have destroyed their artistry by commercialization, and I don't want to belong to that bag.

Fela Kuti

My mother was the most wicked mother ever seen in life when it came to beating. Oh-la-la! Every time I would say, 'This is the end of me.' Oh, how she would beat me.

Fela Kuti

American record companies seem to feel I am antiwestern, anticapitalism, anti the kind of society they like. They think I'm a troublemaker.

Fela Kuti