"Fela Anikulapo Kuti"
Rebel seed of a lush tree,
Fount of pounding sounds
That haunt raiding hounds,
Alone in your style
Alone in your ways;
A blade of wit and
Death-bagging guts.
You who sang at the market place
What others feared to whisper.
Owner of armoury of tunes
Blasting germed scepter,
Their echoes, an anthem
For the low of our layered land.
They flow, even now, those tunes
As whips in the grip of youth,
As torch in hand of the nighted,
As flood flushing seasons of debris.
In time you sang into mother earth,
Interred with scars of the struggle,
With echoes of those tunes
Steeling the weak at heart
Stinging the crown awake.
