Olufela Ransome-Kuti popularly known as Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, was a legendary Nigerian musician, songwriter, stage performer, multi-instrumentalist, human rights activist, and political activist. Fela was the pioneer of Afrobeat, a musical genre solely associated with Nigerian music. He was a prolific songwriter with over 70 albums to his name. Fela was born October 15, 1938, in Abeokuta, Nigeria and died August 2, 1997, in Lagos, Nigeria. In 1958, Fela was sent to London by his father to study medicine, but he decided to study music at the Trinity College of Music, London. While he was there, Fela formed the band Koola Lobitos who played a fusion of American jazz, psychedelic rock, and funk with West African Highlife. In 1960, Fela married…show more content… In 1969, while Fela was still in Ghana, he called his music Afrobeat. After naming his music genre Afrobeat, Fela took his band to the United States of America where they spent 10 months in Los Angeles. While he was in Los Angeles, Fela discovered the Black Power movement through Sandra Smith (now Sandra Isadore) a member of the Black Panther Party. Sandra was Fela’s mentor, teacher, guide, and lover. Sandra influenced Fela’s music and political ideas radically when he lived with her in the early 1970s in Los Angeles. Sandra regaled Fela with tales of how she suffered racial discrimination when she was young. Sandra, in addition, presented Fela with a copy of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. In the book, This Bitch of a Life, she explained: “I talked about my ancestral background. I was trying to let him know that we too are African. We might be a watered-down version but African all the same.” In reality, the Afrobeat pioneer spends an entire chapter speaking about Sandra’s influence on him in Carlos Moore’ biography called Fela: This Bitch of a Life, in Fela’s words: “Sandra gave me the education I wanted to