Description

Lemi Ghariokwu was a teenage artist when the journalist Babatunde Harrison saw one of his illustrations in 1974 and brought him to meet Fela Kuti. Fela offered to pay him; Lemi refused, and the gesture became, in his words, his ticket into Kalakuta Republic, Fela's commune in Lagos. The two went on to make 26 album covers together, starting with Alagbon Close, and Zombie is one of the most direct.

The cover puts Fela in front of the army. He holds a microphone in one hand and gestures defiantly with the other at soldiers whose figures are blown up to an exaggerated size, a collage of iron helmets, hidden faces, stray feet and hands. It is a visual version of the title track, which mocks Nigerian soldiers as zombies who march, stop and kill only on command.

The record was released in Nigeria in 1976 on Coconut Records and became a hit, which made it dangerous. The military government was infuriated, and in 1977 around 1,000 soldiers raided Kalakuta. The commune was burned, Fela's studio, instruments and master tapes were destroyed, and his mother, the activist Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, was thrown from a window and later died of her injuries. Lemi's cover is the image of the confrontation that led to that attack.

Credit

Cover art by Lemi Ghariokwu