On 20 February 1978, at the Parisona Hotel on Ikorodu Road in Lagos, Fela Kuti got married. Not once, but twenty-seven times, in a single ceremony.
The brides were mostly his backing singers and dancers. The wedding was one of the most talked-about events in Nigerian history, and it still draws curiosity today.
After the raid
A year earlier, on 18 February 1977, about a thousand soldiers had attacked Fela’s compound, the Kalakuta Republic, after his album Zombie mocked the military. They beat and assaulted the people inside and burned the buildings. Fela’s mother was thrown from a window and later died of her injuries.
Fela planned the mass wedding to mark the anniversary of that attack.
Why he did it
The women had been living with Fela and working with his band, which led conservative Nigerians and the press to stigmatise them. After the raid, many had nowhere else to go and struggled to find other work.
Fela said that by marrying them, he was giving them status and protection. He also presented it as a statement in favour of African traditions, including polygamy, against Western and Christian norms.
The ceremony
The wedding followed traditional Yoruba rites. The brides wore traditional attire, and the event drew crowds, reporters and photographers. Newspapers carried pictures of Fela surrounded by his new wives.
Reaction
Many Nigerians were shocked. Others were amused or impressed. Tabloids speculated about Fela’s private life, which he dismissed. For Fela, the controversy was part of the point: he enjoyed challenging respectability.
The women
Several of the brides were well known to Fela’s audiences as the singers and dancers of Afrika 70. Some had been at Kalakuta during the raid and had been beaten by the soldiers. For them, the wedding came after a year of trauma and uncertainty.
What happened next
Fela later ended the marriages, saying that marriage brought jealousy and that he no longer believed in it. Some of the women stayed in his circle and continued to perform with him.
A wedding with a message
Most weddings are about two people and two families. Fela’s was also about politics, about a raid, a dead mother and a government he despised. He turned a traditional ceremony into another act of defiance.
The anniversary
Almost every February, Nigerian media revisit the story, and the photographs of Fela and his brides still circulate online. Nearly fifty years later, it remains the most famous wedding in the history of Afrobeat.
