World Passport

FELA KUTI & BROKEN ENGLISH As the first truly Pan-African musical movement, Afrobeat was often sung in the most widely understood language in Africa at the time, known as Broken or Pidgin English. The Language’s invention was necessitated by local African and colonial commercial interests of the 19th century and developed as a means for many ethnic groups to communicate amongst each other as well as with Europeans. Like other forms of colloquial pidgins such as American Ebonics and Creole, Broken is a highly inflected language. Specific tenses, prepositions and entire words are often left out. While fewer, the words that are actually spoken belie the multiple and complex meanings that can be derived from the context and tone of a given phrase.