{"id":17061,"date":"2026-04-23T17:50:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T17:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/?p=17061"},"modified":"2026-04-29T16:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T16:42:11","slug":"jad-abumrad-podcast-fela-kuti-fear-no-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2026\/04\/23\/jad-abumrad-podcast-fela-kuti-fear-no-man\/","title":{"rendered":"How Jad Abumrad transports listeners to a legendary club in Lagos for the acclaimed podcast, \u2018Fela Kuti: Fear No Man\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":" \n
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When \u201cFela Kuti: Fear No Man<\/a>\u201d came out in the fall of 2025, I knew I would need to dedicate real time to listen. Produced by Western Sound<\/a> and Talkhouse<\/a> for Audible<\/a> and Barack and Michelle Obama\u2019s Higher Ground Productions<\/a>, the series \u2014 which just won a Peabody Award<\/a> \u2014 is a musical biography of the prolific inventor<\/a> of Afrobeat, the Nigerian Fela Kuti<\/a>, who died in 1997. It\u2019s also a history of the tumultuous, often violent post-colonial powers he challenged, and what it takes for art to change minds.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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The series was reported and hosted by Jad Abumrad<\/a>, the creator of WNYC\u2019s Radiolab<\/a> who\u2019s now an independent producer. Long ago, I got to report and help produce<\/a> a piece<\/a> with him and his team, so I know that Abumrad\u2019s approach to narrative audio is like no one else\u2019s. He doesn\u2019t work from written scripts, but rather builds stories from interview tape and sound, working the connective tissue of narration around the more musical logic of characters, emotions, and ideas.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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So when I finally started listening to this new series, I expected something good. What I didn\u2019t expect was something you rarely hear much anymore in narrative podcasts: something daring and groundbreaking.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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The sequence that lit up my brain occupies much of the third episode, \u201cEnter the Shrine<\/a>.\u201d By this point in the series, we\u2019ve learned a lot about Fela Kuti\u2019s impact on Nigeria, and particularly on the musicians who played with him for years. We\u2019ve learned some about his childhood in Abeokuta, in a Yoruba-speaking region north of Lagos. We\u2019ve learned that he studied piano in London at Trinity College, before coming to Los Angeles in the late 1960s and getting exposed to the writing of Malcolm X and the Black Power movement. And we\u2019ve learned how he returned to Nigeria in 1970 determined to bring these ideas home, setting up a housing compound and club called the Shrine that he declared to be an independent state<\/a> within Lagos.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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The episode \u201cEnter the Shrine\u201d broadens out \u2014 and slows down the plot. For more than 10 minutes in the middle of the episode, all narration falls away and we hear only a blend of voices, music and sound design that tries to replicate the \u201ctrance\u201d that people say came over them listening to Fela Kuti\u2019s live performances in his club. All this happens against an extended mix of his song \u201cArmy Arrangement,<\/a>\u201d a 1985 critique of Nigeria\u2019s military junta. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Abumrad (left) and Adair (right) with musician and former Fela Kuti collaborator Duro Ikujenyo. (Photo courtesy Ben Adair)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> \n
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We do not hear the names of most of the people whose voices we hear swirling around us \u2014 rather they appear as a chorus, sometimes only repeating one word, at other times entire phrases. The longer this goes on, the more it infringes on a very old taboo in radio: that speakers must be identified whenever possible.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Yes, on radio we do hear the occasional \u201cman on the street\u201d interviews, and there are artistic \u201cnon-narrated\u201d documentaries<\/a> that flirt with unidentified speakers. Trailers and promotional clips might contain a flurry of voices to show off what a series has to offer. But generally in nonfiction audio, it\u2019s considered rude not to identify who is speaking. That\u2019s both for reasons of ethics, but also to avoid disorienting the listener. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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There\u2019s one more thing to add about montages: they are labor intensive. You have to comb through a ton of tape to find the clips that \u201cpop.\u201d Then you have to juxtapose them against one another, trimming and rearranging clips until everything sounds right. You may add music, you may subtract it. You probably should play each version of the sequence for others to make sure you\u2019re not deluded about whether it works. All told, building an effective montage \u2014 especially a long montage \u2014 requires a lot alchemy, and acceptance that many of your attempts will fail.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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I had to know how the montage sequence in “Enter the Shrine” came about \u2014 and more importantly, all the editorial arguments that surely went into its construction. So I called up Jad Abumrad and his editor, Ben Adair. (Full disclosure: in addition to reporting an episode of \u201cRadiolab,\u201d I once worked with Ben Adair at American Public Media and later gave notes on a series he produced with Pushkin Industries, \u201cLost Hills<\/a>.\u201d I\u2019m also one of the editors on a forthcoming narrative series with Pushkin, Audible, and Higher Ground Productions).<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Right away, Abumrad and Adair told me something I\u2019d suspected \u2014 that the elaborate, sound-rich montage sequence that\u2019s now in their third episode was originally intended as the start of the series.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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\u201cOne of the big questions of the series was like, what is the first episode? Even as I say that question out loud, my stomach gets a certain layer of acid to it,\u201d Abumrad said. \u201cBecause we lived with that question for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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He built the montage set in the Shrine, but then the notes came back: this material was too confusing without context. Who was everybody? Why were they there? And where was Fela Kuti?<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Abumrad and Adair took that feedback and moved the sequence further into the series. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Even within the episode itself, we get about ten minutes of preparation: we hear a sonic tour of Lagos, we hear where Fela\u2019s Shrine was situated and how it\u2019s spoken of today, and we hear about Fela\u2019s elaborate preparations to go on stage each night \u2014 followed by a procession to the club, sometimes on a donkey.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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What follows is a transcript of the montage sequence from \u201cEnter the Shrine,\u201d annotated with parts of our conversation. I\u2019d advise listening to the episode (and ideally the two that come before it), and\/or reading along as you listen. This transcript starts after the first ad break in the episode, approximately at the 11:25 mark.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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***<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Script Annotation: Episode 3, \u2018Enter the Shrine\u2019<\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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