No One Could Satisfy Me Like Fela Kuti - Widow of Afrobeat Legend Speaks on Life with Fela

Laide Anikulapo-Kuti, Nee Babayale, one of the wives of the late Afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, has revealed some shocking details about the late afrobeat legend.

Fela and Laide

 

In an interview earlier today during a Channels Television programme, Laide Anikulapo-Kuti, the beautiful widow of late Afro legend and activist, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, has described her late husband as a cheerful giver. 

 

While describing what it felt like to get married alongside 26 other women to one man, she said, "He was a very great man, loved being with people, loved taking charge of people. In Fela’s house, there was no rich or poor man. He would put his bag of money in the midst of everybody and share it between everyone. 

"I was with Fela for seven years before that and I’ve seen the difference and I could see that there was nobody that I can go through that with satisfy me like him, so when he decided to marry us, I was one of the happiest."

 

The widow, used to be a backup dancer for her husband’s band, described his music as 'message filled'. She said; "Fela’s music is a message and the children who were not born when he sang can still listen to those songs and get the message."

 

She said if her late husband was alive today, he would have been happy with the campaign against corruption that President Buhari’s administration is undertaking. "Fela would be happy seeing the kind of work the new government is taking up now; as the new government is taking it up today, that was what Fela wanted," she said. "He wanted enjoyment for everyone."

 

In an interview she had some months ago, she revealed how Fela freezed his eggs so that he can't impregnate women anymore because he has already had plenty of children.

 

She said; "I really wanted to have children because of the special treatment Fela gave his children. I then decided to look outside because Fela didn’t want to have any more children then. He went to one Baba JK in Idi Oro in Mushin to make his sperm watery. He was always drinking African medicine there, and that was what neutralized his sperm. 

"So many women were always getting pregnant for him that he was terminating about six different pregnancies per day. It was Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti that used to terminate it then. They’re all dead now; me too, I’m going to die one day, but it’s always good to put things right for the records. I had my baby for a journalist, Steve, with Punch Newspapers. This is a true life story. I want you to bring it out and let people know."

 

On how Fela married her alongside other 26 women the same day, something that is kind of unbelievable. 

 

She said; "Fela called Steve and the press and said that ‘these women have suffered a lot with me, so if anyone of them wants, they can marry me and be having children.’ Steve said if that was what he wanted, then, no problem. 

"So Fela put out a notebook and said that the people who want to marry him out of all the women in the shrine should put their names down. In all, we were 27 that wrote our names. On the day of the wedding ceremony, Fela’s best pal, Tunji Braithwaite, who was supposed to join us together, ran away from his chambers, saying that he had never seen such a thing before for a man to marry 27 women at the same time. 

"The following day, Fela called an Ifa priest and they came to join us together at Hotel Parisona in Anthony, Lagos. Fela put money on everybody’s heads and we collected our certificates of marriage to him."