Fela Kuti: Fear No Man

In Audible’s Fela Kuti: Fear No Man, producer Jad Abumrad tells the story of one of the 20^th century’s most acclaimed musical geniuses, Fela Kuti, best known for popularizing Afrobeats. Far more than a story about music or a tribute to a legend, the podcast uses Fela as the starting point for a global, decades-spanning story of liberation, civil resistance, complex family dynamics, the history of Nigeria, and more. Drawing from more than 200 interviews with cultural icons, close collaborators, and informed scholars, Fela Kuti: Fear No Man manages to achieve the delicate balance of being highly educational and wildly entertaining without lionizing its fearless hero. The series features never-before-heard interviews from the many women in Fela’s life and recreates the feminist anthems that inspired him via his mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, the “Mother of Africa.” We travel from Fela’s day-long rehearsals to his club, “The Shrine,” from Nigeria’s independence to its youth-driven revolutionary present, guided by Fela’s music as anthems for freedom and deliverance from trauma. For bringing history to life with the power of sound, the podcast Fela Kuti: Fear No Man wins a Peabody.