New version of Fela's 'Zombie' unites artists from Africa and Middle East

“Music is the weapon of the future!” the legendary Fela Kuti declared shortly before his death. This was true in Nigeria a generation ago and it still is true throughout Africa, the Middle East and the rest of the world today.

The new version of 'Zombie', titled ‘From Zombies to Revolutionaries’, features singers, rappers and producers from over a dozen countries, who have come together to forge an exciting new project dedicated to taking the power of Fela's music and politics and spreading it to a young generation struggling for freedom and dignity in the Middle East and Africa.

The song features an all-star cast made up of Fela’s son (and inheritor of his seminal band Egypt 80) Seun Kuti, Egypt’s “singer of the revolution” Ramy Essam, Moroccan rapper and activist El Haqed (aka L7a9ed, “The Enraged One”), Karim Rush of the legendary Egyptian hip-hop crew Arabian Knightz, one of Iran’s premier rappers (and its first major female one) Salomé MC, and the Paris-based Palestinian-Syrian duo Refugees of Rap, who narrowly escaped Yarmouk Camp in the outskirts of Damascus at the height of the civil war.

The groove for the new ‘Zombie’ was laid down by European band Voodoo Sound Club, in their studio in Bologna, Italy with the support of Russi Brass Band and arrangement by Riccardo Pittau and Andrea Scardovi from Duna Studio in Ravenna. Production was provided by multiple-Grammy winner Anton Pukshansky, Italian producer Andrea Deda, Moroccan-Italian 'Gnawa-funk' master and filmmaker Reda Zine, as well as guitarist, professor and author Mark LeVine.

The track was recorded and mixed all over the world, including Los Angeles, Lagos, Cairo, Casablanca, Paris and Tokyo. The music takes the power of Fela’s original groove and updates it with a hip-hop foundation, without losing any of the original spontaneity and improvisation that have always defined Afrobeat.

The lyrics are inspired by Fela’s powerful criticism of the mindlessness of soldiers and thugs who oppress and kill without thought on orders from superiors - a problem that many citizens of Africa and the Middle East have experienced first-hand. But they are no mere translation of his words into Arabic and Persian; instead, each artist interpreted the original lyrics and used them to write about their own experiences and those of their countrymen and women.

It’s rare to have a song featuring both Arabic and Persian lyrics. This is also the first time that Fela’s music has been recorded by artists from the Arab world. ‘From Zombies to Revolutionaries’ doesn’t just take on the most important problem facing the region today - the refusal of military regimes to allow their people live free of oppression, state violence and massive corruption - but it also heralds a long overdue meeting of Africa north and south of the Sahara, and the Middle East as well.

The track is apparently the first in a series of songs inspired by Fela’s incomparable music and featuring the most powerful political artists of the last decade from the Middle East and Africa: including Morocco, Mali, Nigeria, Iran, Egypt and Palestine. A second collaboration, for Fela's 1977 song ‘No Agreement’, is currently in production, with recording taking place in the Niger Delta.

‘Zombie’ was originally released in Nigeria in 1976, the title track of an album released by Coconuts Records. Listen to the original below. For more on Fela's music as a weapon of social change, see here.

Originally published on 15 February 2016 on Freemuse