When Paul McCartney got high with Fela Kuti

In a new episode of the podcast ‘Words + Music’ Paul McCartney recalled the time he got completely high on marijuana alongside the Afrobeat icon Fela Kuti. Macca recalled the time he was recording the album “Band On The Run” (read the review here) with the Wings in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1973, and how, after a day at work, he spent a memorable night with Kuti.

The Wings they were in the Nigerian capital to record their third album. Once they arrived, McCartney noticed a newspaper headline insinuating that the band intended to “steal” the musical style of Fela Kuti. “I thought, ‘Oh no.’ I got his number, called him and said, ‘I absolutely won’t do this. Come to the studio. I’ll prove it to you.'”

Then the Nigerian musician who passed away in 1997 he went to the recording studio and listened to the music on which he Wings they were working. McCartney recalls: “I convinced him, and we became very good friends.” The former Beatle then continues his story: “I wasn’t going to smoke weed, but Kuti gave some to Ginger Baker and said, ‘Ginger Baker, the only man I know who never refused to smoke.’ So I thought, ‘Shit, I’m the one who always refused to smoke.’ So I said, ‘Go.’ Paul McCartney he further added that the only thing that calmed him that evening was listening to the music of Kuti and his band, which moved him to tears.

The NME reports again, as told in the new documentary “Man On The Run”McCartney was arrested in Japan in 1980 after customs officials found about a pound of cannabis in his luggage upon arrival at Narita Airport in Tokyo. He was arrested immediately and even served nine days in prison before being released and expelled from the country, resulting in the cancellation of his tour with Wings.