“It made me cry”: the greatest ‘first listen’ of Paul McCartney’s life
The Beatles may have been a quintessentially British band, but their influences were global. With strong roots in African-American rhythm and blues as well as in rock and roll, the Fab Four also drew on elements of Indian music to inform their later sound following their famous 1968 visit to Rishikesh.
So it was no wonder that when Paul McCartney touched down in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1973 to record his next album, Band on the Run, there was some suspicion amongst local musicians that he had come to the country to look for a new sound and to incorporate, or, in their eyes, steal, elements of African music for his new record.
McCartney, however, had just wanted to record outside of the UK to escape the media storm that surrounded him. He chose Lagos from a list of countries where his label, EMI, had recording studios available.
A portent of the troubles to come arrived before McCartney and his band Wings even took flight. Two of his band members quit the group on the eve of their departure. With a reduced entourage, McCartney set off with wife Linda, their young children, guitarist Denny Laine and a few roadies to work the equipment. When they arrived in Lagos and headed to the studio, they found it under-equipped for purpose, with faulty machines and facilities and far from their accommodation.
To make matters worse, Paul and Linda were even robbed at knifepoint when out walking one night, with the assailant making off with McCartney’s notebook containing his lyrics and song ideas, as well as the cassettes that held all his demos for songs on the album they were making.
When talking about the trip with Rolling Stone in 1974, though, it wasn’t the trouble that stuck out to McCartney, but the music, with one artist especially affecting him: “It was unbelievable. It is unbelievable. When I heard Fela Ransome Kuti the first time, it made me cry, it was that good”.
Speaking on a Hulu documentary nearly 50 years later about the night that he saw Kuti at the African Shrine, Kuti’s club outside of Lagos, in 1973, McCartney added, “Hearing that was one of the greatest music moments of my life”.
Listening to Fela Kuti on record, you can understand his effect on McCartney. Combining West African rhythms with elements commonly found in Western funk and jazz, Kuti’s music is magnetic, enchanting, and hypnotising—the kind of music that moves your body, mind, and soul. Both traditionally rooted and incredibly progressive, Kuti’s music has a spiritual feel that must have really captured McCartney. You can only imagine how transcendent it must have been to witness and experience it in person.
At first, though, the appreciation was not mutual. Kuti was one of the artists who publicly accused McCartney of coming to Lagos to exploit their musicians and steal their sound. He even turned up at the Band on the Run recording sessions, where McCartney played him everything they had recorded to prove that he was not stealing their music.
And while Wings’ best album doesn’t draw on African rhythms or any of Fela Kuti’s groundbreaking Afrobeat music at any point, there is at least one nod to another African trip that the group had taken in 1973, as ‘Mamunia’ was the name of the hotel that Wings stayed in while in Marrakesh in April.
