Gentleman (album)
| Gentleman | ||||
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| Studio album by Fela Ransome-Kuti and the Africa 70 | ||||
| Released | 1973 | |||
| Genre | Afrobeat | |||
| Length | 30:52 | |||
| Label | EMI | |||
| Producer | Fela Ransome-Kuti | |||
| Fela Kuti chronology | ||||
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Gentleman is a studio album by Nigerian Afrobeat musician Fela Kuti. It was written and produced by Kuti and recorded with his Africa 70 band. The cover artwork's depiction of a monkey's head superimposed on a suited body is a reference to the album's title track, which Kuti composed as a commentary on the colonial mentality of Africans who adhered to European customs and clothing. Gentleman was originally released in 1973 by EMI.
The album's title track is Kuti's commentary on the colonial mentality of Africans who adhere to European customs and clothing, as referenced by the cover artwork's collage of a monkey's head on a suited body. On the song, Kuti ponders why fellow Africans would wear so much clothing in the African heat: "I know what to wear but my friend don't know / I am not a gentleman like that! / I be Africa man original." He solos on his tenor saxophone over most of the song's nine-minute intro and switches to his electric piano during the vocal sections. Kuti had learned how to play after the departure of Igo Chico from his Afrika 70 band in 1973. "Gentleman" is followed by two jazzy instrumentals—"Fefe Naa Efe" and "Igbe".
In a retrospective review, AllMusic's Sam Samuelson gave Gentleman five stars and called it "both an Africa 70 and Afro-beat masterpiece." In 2000, MCA Records reissued and bundled Gentleman with Kuti's 1975 album Confusion. It was the last installment in a 10-CD, 20-album reissue project for Kuti. Rob Brunner of Entertainment Weekly gave the reissue an "A", while Robert Christgau from The Village Voice gave it an "A–", indicating "the kind of garden-variety good record that is the great luxury of musical micromarketing and overproduction." He said that, while the horn work that introduces the title track "embodies the contradictions of that song's anti-European message", the album is carried "off into the bush" with "two eight-minute Africanisms". Christgau ranked the reissue number 80 in his dean's list for the Pazz & Jop critics' poll in 2000.
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