Kalakuta Republic is derived from a spell Fela spent in prison in 1974 on suspicion of possessing weed. He was held in a communal cell which his fellow prisoners jokingly called Kalakuta Republic - in Swahili, kalakuta means “rascal.” The tag had a ring to it which appealed to Fela.

Kalakuta Republic was first situated in the Lagos suburb of Surulere, where Fela, his family and Afrika 70 lived until 1977, when the army burnt it to the ground. On February 18, some 1,000 soldiers sealed off the neighbourhood and broke down Kalakuta’s defensive perimeter fence. Residents were beaten with rifle butts and iron bars. Women were raped. Fela was beaten with particular viciousness and his 77 year old mother, a hero of Nigeria’s independence struggle, was thrown from an upstairs window, fracturing a leg (she died the following year from the trauma she had suffered).