A Review: Fela This Bitch of a Life: the Authorized Biography of Africa�s Musical Genius

The book was first published in France in 1982, this new edition came out this year with a foreword from Gilberto Gil, a note from the author, additional chapters at the end about the last years of Fela’s life from 1982 to his death in 1997, and an introduction from Margaret Busby.

The book is unique in that though it is a biography, it was written from hours of direct interviews between Moore and Fela. Some chapters are written as transcripts of those interviews, in Fela’s voice and in the first person. This is also the case with the handful of Fela’s wives, or queens as they are described in the book, and close friends such as J.K. Braimah and Sandra Smith. This sort of format I found very intriguing and gives the book an authenticity as a near autobiography that other books on Fela could not have.