Fela and His Wives: The Import of a Postcolonial Masculinity

This paper explores the possibility that the production and consumption of Fela as a radical, third-world cultural and political figure is coupled with his presentation as radically polygynous and misogynist in ways that allow him to be fit into the existing discourses of race and gender in the West by both mainstream and left audiences. It suggests that Fela's fame in the West is not in spite of his polygyny and misogyny, but at least in part because of them. These elements allow him to be easily assimilated into the pre-existing script of Western expectations for Black African men, and additionally provides an implicit contrast that enables progressive (male) Western audiences to perceive themselves as both non-sexist and non-racist. It begins by examining the thoroughly postcolonial context out of which Fela emerges and into which he is received. Then, drawing on recent work by Judith Butler on gender as performative citation and iteration, it discusses the implications of this theory for views of race and masculinity in postcolonial contexts and apply it to the case of Fela and his wives. The aim is to illuminate both the cultural politics surrounding Fela's death, as well as explore the importance of Butler's work for postcolonial theory.