Fela Kuti & Afrika 70 ‎– Yellow Fever - Knitting Factory Records

One of Fela's finest tracks 1976 with Africa 70.. The groove on Yellow Fever is so tight.., builds up very nicely (like all Fela tracks) - the laidback guitar riff..the drums, the horns, the female vocal layers.. But below that infectious groove there is a deeper message.. - (Na poi 75 on the flip!)

Yellow Fever was the nickname Lagosians gave to traffic wardens, and Kuti borrowed the expression to describe and decry the fashion among Nigerian women for skin-whitening creams... ''Yellow fever'' is about cultural identity. Kuti cites skin whitening as an example of the post-colonial, cultural inferiority complex he believed was holding back the country’s development: skin whitening was not only harmful to beauty and health, it was also damaging to women’s psyches. The lyric addresses women much as 1973’s Gentleman addressed men, urging them to take pride in their own culture rather than aping their recently departed colonial masters.