After a successful run on Broadway where it garnered two Emmys, the musical
Fela! has now started a national tour. I missed it during a trip to New York earlier in the year (tickets were too difficult to obtain), so I was thrilled to hear that it was coming to DC. Based on the life of Nigerian musician Fela Kuti, the musical recounts how he developed his popular Afrobeat sound and used music to protest the corrupt Nigerian government. After the mass popularity of songs like “Zombie,” which lampooned the methods of the military, the government felt so threatened that in 1977 it attacked Kuti’s commune, beating men and women and killing his mother.
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Tags: culture, great music, history, politics by Jon O
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National Public Radio reports that Chinese police have swept Tibetan markets in recent months looking for banned music, arresting several individuals for using “reactionary ringtones” on their cell phones. 
Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony was graced with two sensitive musical performances. First, Aretha Franklin delivered a powerful, rousing version of “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” (aka “America”). In 1831, Samuel F. Smith set new words to the tune of the British national anthem “God Save the King/Queen,” and the song served as a de facto national anthem for the U.S. for much of the 19th century. Aretha’s rendition transformed the rather tepid lyrics into something profound, proving that she still deserves the title Queen of Soul (take THAT, “Hey, Nineteen”!). 
I usually don’t write about politics, but Richard Scheinin wrote an article in today’s San Jose Mercury News that brings together music and politics — specifically, the music picks of Barack Obama and John McCain — and the opportunity proved too tempting to pass up. Looking at the “Top 10″ lists the two senators compiled for Blender Magazine, Scheinin makes the interesting point that the choice of music reveals something important about each candidate. 
