KCRW’s relationship with Fela Kuti goes back to 1980, when KCRW’s Tom Schnabel and Roger Steffens were connected with the mighty Afrobeat innovator while he was still imprisoned in Nigeria. Six years later, once Fela was free and clear to tour internationally, he came to Los Angeles and visited KCRW in person, again with Tom Schnabel.
The connective tissue between these two events is Sandra Izsadore, who returned to KCRW for the first time in decades to talk with Lost Notes co-host Michael Barnes about meeting Fela in LA in 1969, and her essential role in the creation of the Afrobeat genre. It’s safe to say that without Sandra, there would have been no Fela as we came to know him soon thereafter. And that’s no exaggeration.