Friday Feels Like: The Queens

I recently watched a documentary the other night, Fela Kuti: Music Is The Weapon, made in the 1980’s about Nigerian musician and activist Fela Kuti. His music could be best described as Afro-beat; a mixture of jazz, blues, rock, and traditional African hymns.  It’s high energy and strongly political.

In the ’70s, Fela married 27 women who were members of his band and dancers for his performances. He called them his “queens,” a group of beautiful, talented women who were Kuti’s closest companions and advisers, the mothers of his children, and followers of his beliefs in the radical change needed in Nigeria at the time.

One of my favourite parts was watching the “queens” put their make-up on. The colours, the attention to detail, the ritual of it all, and each of them creating a totally different look to the next – but collectively of the same vein. They looked like a troop of beautifully feathered birds ready to perform. I was impressed, and mesmerised. Uninfluenced by anything of the Western world, the make-up stemmed from a more traditional aesthetic, in application and in the means to attract.

Recommended!