Fela Kuti was a renowned Nigerian musician who wrote and sang hundreds of songs during his life time most of which were big hit. Many agree that he was a man of great talent and some have gone so far as to call him a musical genius. He is mostly known for the politics in his music which incurred the wrath of the then Nigerian government. However, it is his personal life and the lives of the women in his life that intrigues me and that is inspire this post.
Fela Kuti was openly polygamous and in February 1978, he collectively married 27 women in traditional ceremony. He lived with all these women in the same house in a compound which he referred to as Kalakuta Republic. In fact, at the time of the above marriage there were many more women living in Kalakuta, his first wife Femi whom he had married about 10 years earlier.
Legendary Afrobeat musician, Fela Kuti married 27 of his backup dancers in one day, after he had asked all the ladies in his band if they wanted to marry him. When all 27 of them agreed to be his wives, Fela called 12 traditional priests to preside over the wedding ceremony which took place at a hotel in Lagos, Nigeria on the 20th of February 1978.
For honeymoon, Fela took all his 27 wives to Ghana.
However, eight years later in 1986, the late Fela divorced all of them at the same time with the claim that; “Marriage brings jealousy and selfishness.”Fela Kuti’s death date was on August 2, 1997.
Please click on follow and share your comments below,can you also marry to that extent?
Content created and supplied by: Ghentnews (via Opera
News )