Keep Nigeria One

Album: single release only (1969)
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Songfacts®:

  • According to Tejumola Olaniyan in Arrest the Music! Fela and His Rebel Art and Politics, during the Biafran War, record promoter Duke Lumumba came up with the idea of recording a pro-government record "just so we could get some bread, man."

    Fela wrote "Keep Nigeria One," Lumumba got $2,500 from an elderly backer, and told him "Fela, I have to make just one record that the Nigerian government will like, just in case the government will want to back the band."

    Fela's response was, "So we made this tune. It was just bulls--t", adding "I feel so bad about that record now; I was on Biafra's side." >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Alexander Baron - London, England

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