Radiolab - Fela Kuti: Enter the Shrine

Our original host Jad Abumrad returns to share a new podcast series he’s just released. It’s all about Fela Kuti, a Nigerian musician who created a genre, then a movement, then tried to use his hypnotic beats to topple a military dictatorship. Jad tells us about the series and why he made it, and we play the episode that, for us at least, gets to the heart of the matter: How exactly does his music work? What actually happens to the people who hear it and how does it move them to action?You can find Jad’s entire nine-part series, Fela Kuti: Fear No Man, on Apple or Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Jad AbumradRadiolab portions produced by - Sindhu Gnanasambandan Sign up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Signup (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected]. Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Duration: 42m
Broadcast on: 28 Nov 2025
Audio Format: other

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Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

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RIDILEB is supported by AT&T. We all love to connect via video calls or texts. Right now, at AT&T, you can get the new iPhone 18 Pro for $0 with iPhone trade-in. Any condition. It has the ultimate pro camera system and big leap in battery life, so you can turn this deal into a long-lasting connection. Learn how you can trade in your iPhone for the new iPhone 18 Pro requires trade-in of iPhone 14 or higher, excluding iPhone 16E, an eligible plan. Terms and restrictions apply, subject to change, visit an AT&T store for details. Radio Labs' supporters include the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, picture this, years of guarantee research support and a vibrant scientific community that has your back. If you're a PhD student, postdoc, or early career faculty in the biological or biomedical scientist, that doesn't have to be a fantasy. HHMI has a program for you. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute supports scientists at every career stage with a "people, not projects" approach, long-term support, and the resources for breakthrough science. Applications open now. Find your program at HHMI.org/RadioLab. Are you listening to Radio Lab, from WNYC? Is Radio Lab? I'm Latif Nasser. And I'm Lulu Miller and I am Chad Abumrod here to hang out with Lulu and Latif. Welcome back, old man! Thanks, youngster. Happy to be here. Yeah, where have you been this whole time? I've just been here in Brooklyn and just, you know, being a dad, making stuff. So pretty much the first thing that happened when I handed you guys the show proudly is I became a professor, kind of a fake professor at Vanderbilt, but teaching all kinds of things, relating to storytelling, and interviewing. Dr. Abumrod. Well, you know, none of the other faculty are fooled. But also alongside that, I've been making all kinds of weird music and theater things. We just had a big thing in Brooklyn that launched in May. It's about the Brooklyn Navy Yard, America's war-making engine, in a way. And I don't know. Those felt like what if journalism were sung by 60 women? And then somewhere along the way, early, I got into a conversation with Ben Adair, old friend, who has been making audio stories as long as I have. He approached me and he was like, "Hey, do you want to do a podcast about Fela Kuti?" Fela Kuti, the Nigerian musician, who invented a whole new genre of music and started a political movement and toppled a government just with music. I was like, "Cool, that sounds interesting." And I said yes to it in the way that you say yes to things that you know are never going to happen. I was like, "This will be really fun." Sure. I'd love to have dinner at your house. That sounds great. Well, I wasn't saying yes in a note, like I don't really want to do it.

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