FELA! Broadway Soundtrack Due

Acclaimed musical now gets the at-home version you can listen to.

By Blurt Staff

You've no doubt spotted the banner up top on our home page about our FELA! contest where you can win tickets to the Broadway show - more details here. Now comes word of the June 8 release of the original cast soundtrack on the Knitting Factory label, which has been instrumental in bringing a slew of Fela reissues back into print.

Fela! - Original Broadway Cast Recording documents the magic of the hit Broadway musical that Ben Brantley of the New York Times called "hot (and seriously cool)." He went on to say that "there has never been anything on Broadway like this production."

Fela! - Original Broadway Cast Recording features the incomparable Sahr Ngaujah as Fela singing with members of the irrepressibly funky Antibalas. A version featuring Kevin Mambo will be available for download and for sale at the theater. All 16 of the Fela compositions that are peformed on stage each night, leaving sold-out audiences astonished and breathless at the end of every show, are on the record as are several songs peformed by Funmalayo (Fela's mother) as played by the Tony-award winning Lilias White, and Sandra Izadore (Fela's American girlfriend) as played by Saycon Sengbloh. The record was produced by the Grammy-nominated Robert Sher.

"We worked incredibly hard, and have had amazing and talented people on board to create what we think is one of the hottest, sexiest, entertaining and unique Broadway experiences today," says the show's producer Stephen Hendel. "We're working equally hard to make sure that's captured in the cast record."

Based on the life of groundbreaking African composer and performer Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, FELA! is the critically acclaimed Broadway musicalthatuses Fela's music to explore his life as an artist, political activist and revolutionary musician. 

Watch a video of the musical here:

Directed and choreographed by Tony® Award winner Bill T. Jones, with arrangements by Aaron Johnson and Jordan McLean, FELA!is a provocative hybrid of concert, dance and musical theatre. The cast recording captures the electricity and joy that thousands have experienced at the Eugene O'Neill Theater every night since the play opened on November 23, 2009. The record is a document of that experience, yet at the same time is a musical statement in its own right.

Says Hendel, "There are three great bands in the world that can capture this music with the thrill and intensity of Fela Kuti himself: Femi and Seun Kuti live and play in Nigeria and tour around the world; members of Antibalas live in Brooklyn. We are priviliged to have these members on our stage every night, bringing this music to a world that has, to a large extent, only recently understood what they've been missing."

Tracklisting:

Everything Scatter

Yellow Fever/Ikoyi Blindness

Trouble Sleep

Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsese

Lover

Upside Down

Expensive Shit

I.T.T.

Water Get No Enemy/Egbe Mi O

Zombie

Na Poi

Sorrow Tears and Blood

Dance of the Orisas/Shakara

Rain

Coffin Head of State