Afrobeat Queens

In Afrobeat Queens, the women of Afrobeat music—a unique blend of jazz, soul, highlife, and West African rhythms—are finally given the recognition they deserve. This extensive study takes a multifaceted view of the storied lives of the women behind Fela Kuti's activist music.

Dotun Ayobade's wide-ranging research pulls from interviews with surviving queens, ethnographic narratives, the exploration of newspaper archives, and close readings of album covers, photographs, and promotional materials to help us see and understand the women who surrounded Feli Kuti on stage and at home. Not only were these artists crucial performers and backup singers for Kuti's most important compositions, they also played key roles in his activism and campaigns of social protest against the Nigerian government in the 1970s.

Drawing on previously untapped material, Afrobeat Queens weaves together an intricate narrative of women's participation in popular music. Through the stories of these remarkable women, Queens of Afrobeat transforms and uniquely personalizes our understanding of the politics and performance of one of the major modern musical traditions in Africa.