EP 53: Kaleta on Afrobeat, Fela Kuti, and the Power of Collective Music

Guest: Leon "Kaleta" Ligan-Majekodunmi (Afrobeat guitarist, composer, bandleader)
Host: Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi, aka SoSaLa, MFM President

Key Topics & Highlights

• Kaleta’s early life in Benin
  • Growing up near the Nigerian border
  • Secretly learning guitar against family expectations
  • First musical breakthroughs through church and street performances
• Moving to Lagos at age 15
  • Learning English while building a music career
  • Immersion in juju, highlife, and early Afrobeat
  • Joining King Sunny Adé’s band as a teenager
• Writing and recording “E Ba Mi Dupe”
  • Kaleta’s composition recorded by King Sunny Adé
  • Breakdown of juju guitar techniques
• Joining Fela Kuti
  • Auditioning at the Shrine
  • Life inside Kalakuta Republic
  • Afrobeat as discipline, politics, and collective thinking
  • Touring globally with Fela through the 1980s and early ’90s
• Immigration and life after Fela
  • Staying in the U.S. after Fela’s final tour (1991)
  • Rebuilding from scratch
  • Founding multiple Afrobeat projects in New York
• Working with Lauryn Hill
  • A chance rehearsal encounter led to touring together
  • Afrobeat’s influence across genres and generations
• “Country of Guns”
  • Writing the song after witnessing gun violence news in the U.S.
  • Music as social commentary, not just entertainment
• Afrobeat in America
  • Thoughts on Antibalas and non-African Afrobeat bands
  • Afrobeat vs. modern Afrobeats
  • Afrobeat as “roots music,” not museum music
• Music, organizing, and musicians’ rights
  • FESTAC 77 FESTIVAL and Pan-Africanism 
  • Why musicians must act collectively
  • Parallels between Fela’s activism and MFM’s mission

Music Featured in the Episode

King Sunny Adé – E Ba Mi Dupe (composed/arranged by Kaleta)

Zozo Afrobeat – Country of Guns

Kaleta & Super Yamba Band – Mr. Diva

Kaleta & Super Yamba Band – Ajogan Blues

Credits
Producer and host:  Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi aka SoSaLa
Publisher: Musicians For Musicians (MFM), Inc.
Technical support: Adam Reifsteck (MFM Board)

https://musiciansformusicians.org