Released 1973 Length 30:52 Producer Fela Ransome-Kuti | Genre Afrobeat Label EMI Gentleman
(1973) Confusion
(1975) | |
Gentleman is a studio album by Nigerian Afrobeat musician Fela Kuti. It was written and produced by Kuti and recorded with his Africa 70 band. The cover artwork's depiction of a monkey's head superimposed on a suited body is a reference to the album's title track, which Kuti composed as a commentary on the colonial mentality of Africans who adhered to European customs and clothing. Gentleman was originally released in 1973 by EMI.
Contents
Music and lyrics
The album's title track is Kuti's commentary on the colonial mentality of Africans who adhere to European customs and clothing, as referenced by the cover artwork's collage of a monkey's head on a suited body. On the song, Kuti ponders why fellow Africans would wear so much clothing in the African heat: "I know what to wear but my friend don't know / I am not a gentleman like that! / I be Africa man original." He solos on his tenor saxophone over most of the song's nine-minute intro and switches to his electric piano during the vocal sections. Kuti had learned how to play after the departure of Igo Chico from his Afrika 70 band in 1973. "Gentleman" is followed by two jazzy instrumentals—"Fefe Naa Efe" and "Igbe".
Critical reception
In a retrospective review, AllMusic's Sam Samuelson gave Gentleman five stars and called it "both an Africa 70 and Afro-beat masterpiece." In 2000, MCA Records reissued and bundled Gentleman with Kuti's 1975 album Confusion. It was the last installment in a 10-CD, 20-album reissue project for Kuti. Rob Brunner of Entertainment Weekly gave the reissue an "A", while Robert Christgau from The Village Voice gave it an "A–", indicating "the kind of garden-variety good record that is the great luxury of musical micromarketing and overproduction." He said that, while the horn work that introduces the title track "embodies the contradictions of that song's anti-European message", the album is carried "off into the bush" with "two eight-minute Africanisms". Christgau ranked the reissue number 80 in his dean's list for the Pazz & Jop critics' poll in 2000.
In 2010, Gentleman was bundled again with Confusion by Knitting Factory Records as a part their extensive reissue of Kuti's 45-album discography. Paste magazine's Michaelangelo Matos gave it a score of "9.3/10" and cited it as the "essential twofer" in the reissue series. All About Jazz critic Chris May said that Gentleman and Confusion were "the first major masterpieces in Kuti's canon."
Track listing
All songs written by Fela Ransome-Kuti.
- "Gentleman" – 14:32
- "Fefe Naa Efe" – 8:06
- "Igbe" – 8:14
Personnel
Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.