Why Ghana's Young Hustlers Should Listen to a Dead Nigerian With a Saxophone

Authored by V. L. K. Djokoto

Fela Anikulapo Kuti didn't make music. He declared war — total, beautifully orchestrated war — against hypocrisy, tyranny, and that peculiarly African affliction of nodding politely whilst the emperor swans about naked and everyone pretends his outfit is marvellous.

If you're a young Ghanaian stuck in Spintex Road traffic, squinting at your bewildering payslip, or plotting entrepreneurial masterstrokes whilst your internet connection dies spectacularly — let Uncle Fela whisper a few home truths across the decades.

Fela didn't call corruption "governance challenges." He called it "Authority Stealing." Straight up. Bang. No diplomatic hedging.

When he witnessed oppression, he sang it with the brass section blazing like Gabriel's trumpet corps. They jailed him for it. Repeatedly. Beat him half to death. Burned his commune. Threw his mother out of a window — she died from her injuries.

Did he emerge contrite, ready to behave sensibly? Did he buggery. He came out louder, angrier, possibly with an extra horn section.

That's the spirit we need. Speak truth — not with bitterness or exhausting victimhood, but with rhythm, wit, and that African genius for wrapping difficult truths in irresistible melody. In a continent where too many whisper nervously in corridors, the brave ones sing from rooftops.

Fela didn't give a flying fig for imitation. While other African musicians ape American soul or British rock, desperately trying to sound "international," Fela invented his own bloody language.

He fused Yoruba drums, highlife horns, jazz improvisation, James Brown's funk, traditional chants, and Lagos attitude — that wonderful, chaotic, irrepressible Lagos energy — to create something magnificently fresh. It was called Afrobeat because nobody else on earth could make that sound.

Ghana's young creators must tattoo this on their foreheads: authenticity is your passport to the world. Your grandmother's Ewe proverbs mixed with Python skills. Your Ga slang meeting Silicon Valley swagger. Your jollof recipe (definitely better than Nigeria's) informing your business model.

Don't dilute your magic trying to sound "global." The world is desperate for something real, something that hasn't been focus-grouped into beige oblivion. Give them Ghana, unfiltered, undiluted, unapologetic.

Freedom Requires Discipline

Here's the delicious paradox Western hippies never grasped: the freest man in Africa was one of the hardest-working buggers on the continent.

Behind the apparent chaos — the commune, the twenty-seven wives, the ganja smoke, the all-night jam sessions — was an absolute perfectionist who rehearsed until the brass section sparkled like champagne and every rhythm landed with surgical precision.

Freedom isn't lying in bed till noon scrolling TikTok whilst "ideating." As Fela might say: "No be freedom be laziness, my brother. Na discipline be freedom."

Want to build that app? Code till your fingers bleed. Want to disrupt agriculture? Learn soil pH and supply chains. Want to write that novel? Sit your arse down and write it. Freedom comes after the work, not instead of it.

Laugh, Then Build

When soldiers raided Fela's home in 1977, burned his studio, threw his mother out a window and beat him within an inch of his life — what did he do?

He turned it into a song. "Coffin for Head of State"—an entire funeral procession delivered to the presidential palace gates. That's African resilience: tragic, often appalling, but ultimately triumphant. Turning pain into art, grief into action, oppression into rhythm.

But here's the trick: turn that laughter into momentum, into tangible change. Not into complacency or that shoulder-shrugging "this is Africa" resignation that lets the bastards win.

Mock the powerful, yes. But also replace them. Don't just complain about corrupt officials —build transparent systems they can't manipulate. Don't just whinge about infrastructure — create solutions that bypass it. Don't criticize the old guard — become the new one.

Leave Your Rhythm Behind

Fela's funeral brought Lagos — a city not known for orderly traffic — to complete standstill. Over a million people flooded the streets. Not because he was perfect (he absolutely wasn't), but because he lived loudly. He made noise for justice. He refused to be ignored.

So, to Ghana's new generation —c oding in East Legon, farming in Anloga, making films in Accra, building logistics in Tema— take this from Fela:

Don't wait for permission to be bold. The gatekeepers are obsolete. The old systems are crumbling. The future belongs to those who simply build it.

Challenge power, but also construct things. Criticism is easy. Construction is hard. Do both.

Be authentic, even when commercially inconvenient. Especially then.

Work harder than anyone expects. Freedom is earned through discipline.

And when the world tells you to sit down, behave, stop making noise, be sensible — do precisely what Fela would do:

Pick up your metaphorical saxophone (or laptop, or microphone, or agricultural innovation, or blockchain solution), blow your truth into the wind with all the lung capacity you can muster, and make the powerful dance to your tune.

The system doesn't change because we ask nicely. It changes because someone makes better music than the lies they're selling.

It changes because young people in Accra and Kumasi and Tamale decide they're tired of the old song and compose a new one.

Now then. Where's my saxophone?

Onwards!