Zombie by Fela Kuti

Zombie, Fela Kuti's broadside against Nigeria's rulers, came out at home on Coconut Records in 1976 before Creole Records carried it to Britain the following year. Fela wrote the music, and it's Afrobeat at full strength: West African rhythm welded to American funk and jazz, the grooves locking in and refusing to let go, horns stabbing, the bandleader preaching over the top.

It was also a dangerous record to make. The album took aim at the government, and it is widely thought to have brought on the army's retaliation: the military raid in 1977 that destroyed his Kalakuta Republic commune, a compound he'd declared independent of military rule, injured Fela and killed his mother, the women's rights activist Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti. Few records have cost their maker so much, and few sound so defiant doing it.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.