Upside Down (1976):

Sandra, the woman who stood by Fela and also brought him in contact with the Black Panther during his transformation years in the United States, came back to visit a highly popular and successful Fela in Nigeria in 1976. Upside Down was written by Fela to portray a worldly travelled African, who searches the dictionary, and finds the definition of upside down—a perfect description of the African situation. ‘I have travelled widely all over the world like any professor…’ Fela makes Sandra sing: “The thing I have seen I will like to talk about upside-up and downside-down, in overseas! Everything is organise. Their system organise! They have their own names!” But back home in Africa, everything is: ‘head for down yanish for up! Everything is disorganise!’. Meaning back home, everything is totally disorganized—Upside Down
Go Slow: Go slow is about the crawling Lagos traffic jam that symbolizes the confusion that reigns in Nigeria. Fela compares the traffic situation with a person in jail. He says: ‘you have to be a man in life!’. That is a natural instinct in man but when caught in Lagos traffic, all your aspirations and confidence as a man will wither away. You feel suddenly incapacitated, like a man in jail. Or how would you feel driving on a Lagos road and suddenly, in your front there is a lorry to your left a taxi cab, all vehicles in a standstill. Also to your right, a tipper truck and behind you a ‘molues’ passenger bus and above you a helicopter flying. To complete the picture of you imprisoned on the Lagos highway.

Fela & Roy Ayers (Music of Many Colours) (1980):

2000 Blacks Got To Be Free: Is a musical collaboration between the African American vibraphone player Roy Ayers and Fela. After a three week tour of Nigeria’s major cities in 1979, where he performed as the opening act for Fela’s band, the two artists decided to do a joint album as a round-up to the tour. The result, an album titled: ‘MUSIC OF MANY COLOURS’. On the A side Fela’s Africa Centre of the World, and on the B Side Roy Ayers: 2000 Blacks Got To Be Free. In this song Roy says he has, like many other black men, a vision coupled with a dream that says: ‘…by the year 2000 comes around, Africa would be united and free’. He hopes, or better he knows that everybody in Africa and the Diaspora will be knowledgeable about Africa. That by the time year 2000 rolls around, we will all have our minds together—2000 Black Got To Be Free is the message from Roy Ayers, that black people should unite by the time year 2000 comes.

Africa Centre Of The World: Africa Centre Of The World is Fela’s contribution to the joint album from him and Roy Ayers called: Music Of Many Colours. It is a song about Africa, the cradle of today’s civilization. Recorded twenty-one years after he left Nigerian shores to study music at London Trinity College Of Music. According to Fela in this song, the ignorance of the Western world at this time was still very much evident. Englishmen, who were not aware of the ape-like origin of man, used to come-over to him to find-out if he got a tail like apes and monkeys. For him, it is only ignorance that could be the reason for such dumb questions. He points to Africa’s place at the centre of the world map, as not by accident, rather because we were the first people on earth, adding that territory has been man’s major reason for going to war. If Africans occupy the best area in the world, this is not by accident. Africans must have been the strongest people to occupy the centre of the world.

- Mabinuori Kayode Idowu