J.J.D., short for Johnny Just Drop, is originally by Fela Kuti and his band called Africa 70 in 1977. Fela is often regarded as the King of Afrobeat, a Nigerian music genre that combines West African music with American funk and jazz, not to be confused with afrobeats of the 2000s-2010s. Born in 1938 north of Lagos, Fela was no stranger to politics and activism, coming from a mother who was one of Nigeria's earliest feminists and heavily involved in Nigeria's anti-colonial, anti-military struggle. He studied music in London and recorded many albums in Los Angeles, learning about everyone from James Brown to Malcolm X, before being deported back to Nigeria. It was then that Fela founded Kalakuta Republic, where he recorded J.J.D. and many other songs before over a thousand Nigerian soldiers violently raided the studio and attacked both Fela and his mother later in 1977. As the album cover illustrates, J.J.D.'s lyrics criticize Nigerians who have been to Europe or America and then return (drop) to Nigeria having been whitewashed. Fela then created his own political party, Movement for the People (MOP), and toured and built community in Nigeria and Ghana, before passing of complications from AIDS in 1997.
Rude Mechanical Orchestra plays this Fela Kuti tune as arranged by our friends in the Brass Liberation Orchestra (BLO). RMO played a favorite arrangement of JJD at HONK! 2017 with BLO. In solidarity with the Pan-African, Black Lives Matter, Land Back, and immigration justice movements, among others, we play this song to emphasize intersectional people power in our movements, denounce the settler-colonialist-capitalist bourgeoisie, and to demand that no one is illegal on stolen land. Power to the people, no one is illegal!
Written and popularized by Fela Kuti and the Africa 70, arranged by Brass Liberation Orchestra
