Nigerians were left disappointed last week when this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF) inductees were announced, and one of the greatest musicians of all time, Fela Kuti who had emerged second by votes, was conspicuously missing.
Fela, who pioneered Afrobeat, and took the genre global in a career that lasted many decades, before his death in 1997, secured the second-highest fan vote (545,000) only behind Tina Turner (585,000). Fan voting commenced Tuesday, February 10, 2021, with 16 nominees going head to head to earn a place.
Nigerians voted en masse; with many influencers leading the drive on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Fela’s family, associates, and fans campaigned for weeks, giving national publicity to a platform hitherto unknown to many Nigerians.
The inductees’ list released on Wednesday, May 12, 2021, includes Tina Turner (previously inducted with Ike and Tina Turner in 1991), Carole King (previously inducted with Gerry Goffin in 1990), Dave Grohl (previously inducted with Nirvana in 2014), Jay-Z, Foo Fighters, The Go-Go’s, and Todd Rundgren.
Voters were shocked to see Jay-Z, who scored below Fela in the fan vote, gain a place on the list.
Femi Kuti, Fela’s son and Afrobeat king, was quick to comment. “I don’t see a loss there,” he tells Netng’s Ikenna Bede. “If you look at it from another perspective, all that Fela has done for music, he should not even be on the nominees’ list. He should just put him there because he has inspired their greatest artistes. Beyonce just paid tribute to him in one of her biggest concerts (Coachella). Jay-Z pays tribute to him, Wyclef pays tribute to him.”
Cofounded by Atlantic Record president Ahmet Ertegun on April 20, 1983, RRHOF celebrates the history and cultural significance of rock music while honouring the contributions of those who have played a significant role in the music’s creation and dissemination.
John Lennon, Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, and Stevie Nicks are some of the acts that have gained access into the exclusive club reserved for music giants influencing other artistes.
This year, 30 music industry professionals, including some past inductees, academics, and journalists, make up the Nominating Committee. The committee selects the group of artistes to be nominated in the performer category. To prevent lobbying efforts of artistes and music industry execs from influencing the final results, nominating committee member names are kept under lock and key until after the induction ceremony. An artiste is only eligible for nomination if their first record was released 25 years ago.
Ballots are dispatched to an international voting body of 1,200 artists, including current living inductees, historians, and members of the music industry to select the inductees, taking into consideration the artiste’s musical influence on other artists, length and depth of career and body of work, innovation and superiority in style and technique.
In an email response to Netng enquiries, Brad Scarton, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Curatorial Coordinator says winners are chosen based on combination of fans votes and member selection.
“Beginning in 2012, fans were given the chance to vote for the nominees they’d like to see inducted into the Rock Hall. The top five vote-getters in the public fan poll form one ballot, which is weighted the same as the rest of the submitted ballots.”
“So, although Fela Kuti was second in the fan vote, he didn’t receive enough votes from the larger voting body to be inducted this year,” he concluded.
This means that the total public votes hold the same value as any of the 1,200 member’s ballots, even if 20 million fan votes were cast.
“I am disappointed, f**k,” Yeni said over the telephone, in a chat with Nigerian Entertainment Today. “But then I realise that we Africans always look to ‘oyibo’ (white people) for validation. So it will teach us a lesson to start to do our things, to do our awards, and become the envy of the world.”
Speaking on the voting process, Yeni felt the voters were out of touch and that she would never vote again if Fela were nominated. She also pointed out that an inductee, Jay-Z, has quoted Fela as an influence and yet got on the inductees’ list. This further negates their criteria of ‘artistes influencing other artistes.’
“I don’t think they (members of the voting committee) were informed about his work. Maybe half of the people who were on the casting ballot never knew who Fela was,” she added.
Based on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame history, fan vote and industry expert’s votes influence outcomes differently. Last year, Doobie Brothers was the sole recipient of the honour despite Dave Matthews receiving most of the fan votes.
Meanwhile, Theo Lawson, the designer of the memorial and leisure park, Freedom Park, thought the fan voting process was exploitative.
“I registered and voted once. I noticed immediately after that these guys were sending merchandising materials, wanting me to buy things from them. It was as if you registered so they could market you, and that even made me angrier because once you registered online to vote, you now became a target for their merchandising. It was a big scam.”
On the other hand, a veteran Nigerian journalist Charles Okogene said the recognition wouldn’t mean anything to Fela. “If Fela were alive, I don’t think that he would have associated himself with such a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,” Okogene said.
If anything, Fela guards his craft jealousy and positions it as authentic. He wasn’t eager to gain validation from anyone. In 1973, when Paul McCartney was in Lagos to record his third studio album ‘Band on the Run’, Fela wasn’t impressed and later implied that McCartney was in Africa to steal the black man’s music.
“Right around the time I was recording ‘Band on the Run’, I went down to Lagos to do it,” McCartney recalled in a 2013 interview to mark the 75th posthumous birthday of Fela. “The first thing that happened to me was that I was accused of stealing the black man’s music. ‘He’s come here to steal the music.’ So I said, ‘who is doing that? I was in the newspaper.’ It was Fela, of course.”
He continues: “So I got his number and rang him up and said, ‘hey, man, come on, I’m not here to do that. I just love the idea. I love African music and I just wanted the atmosphere, but I’m certainly not stealing.”
He came around the studio and I played him all my stuff, and he said, ‘nothing like African music.’
The 36th Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will take place on Saturday, October 30, 2021.
Suffice to say Nigerians will not be tuning in.