From MOJO:

As much as the band could try to block out their disquietingly exotic environment during studio hours, any attempt to cut loose during their downtime only served to remind them of just how far they were from home. One night the party decided to visit Fela Kuti’s Afrika Shrine club to watch the Nigerian bandleader perform with Africa ‘70 and Paul, heavily stoned on the potent local weed, suddenly felt hopelessly out of his depth. 

“We got a bit over-wasted,” he says. “And I then got the screaming paranoias, suddenly being in this place on the outskirts of Lagos with absolutely no one we knew. Fela came off very much as a tribal leader and when he went on-stage he wore nothing except a grass skirt, which added to the impression (laughs). Had I have see a cauldron wheeled out with hot water in it, I would not have been surprised. But the release from that paranoia the minute his band played the first note was so overwhelming that I remember weeping. It was like ‘Wow.’”

But Kuti was suspicious of McCartney’s motives in Nigeria and mounted a local media campaign accusing the former Beatle of being there to filch elements of Nigerian music.

Amazing.

Fela Kuti and Africa 70 will never mean the same thing to us as they will the rest of the world. How could they? Or better yet, why should they? Yes, we can certainly learn the hard lessons of Nigerian and African history of the time from countless texts, and listen to the songs of that moment with this new knowledge. But oh, those just-missed organ strokes and effortless, pulsing, smooth beats. Oh, and gawd dayum, those sax fills and frills, those wonderful ladies with their bird calls and responses. And yes, oh yes, that heavy, smokey voice of Kuti dancing us across it, down into it and ultimately, through it. Less an inspiration for a necessary political uprising, “Coffin For Head of State Pt. 2” is for us the music of Sunday afternoons, post-band practice chill/smoke sessions, a cosmic groove led by an Speedo-clad, hyper-confident shaman. This is exactly how you don’t give fuck and change the world doing it.