Higher Ground's Fela Kuti: Fear No Man Releases Series Finale

"Deeply reported and sonically glorious…a stunning eight-hour immersion into Fela's life and music—and into volatile post-colonial Nigeria, in which we glimpse flashes of our own precarious time"

– The New Yorker

After spending three years traveling to Lagos, London, Paris and Los Angeles, recording more than 200 interviews with Fela Kuti's family, friends, closest collaborators and biggest fans, and asking some of the most pressing and prescient questions of the moment, 3x Peabody-winner Jad Abumrad has reached the culmination of his most daring work to date – Fela Kuti: Fear No Man. Following the show's recent features on This American Life and Radiolab – and today's announcement that Fela Kuti will be honored by the Recording Academy® with the 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award, taking place at The Special Merit Awards Ceremony during Los Angeles' Grammy® Week on January 31st – this week's twelfth and final episode bookends "a mighty biographical podcast," writes The New Yorker's Sarah Larson, who named Fela Kuti: Fear No Man the #1 Best Podcast of 2025. 

Listen to Fela Kuti: Fear No Man Here

Described by President Barack Obama as "a beautiful show about a unique figure in musical history who mixed art with activism," Fela Kuti: Fear No Man marks Abumrad's triumphant return to audio, and "finds him in characteristically compelling form," says Vulture, in its list of 10 Narrative Podcasts We Loved This Year. "The Radiolab creator reprises the approach he honed in Dolly Parton's America, melding his distinct flavor of expansive sound design with a deep historical and musicological curiosity."

As Fear No Man tells the story of one of music's great political awakenings – how a classically trained 'colonial boy' traveled to America in search of Africa, only to then return home to Nigeria, transform his sound into a battering ram against the state, and create a new musical language of resistance – it also wonders: In a world that's on fire, what is the role of art? What can music actually do? Can a song save a life? Change a law? Topple a president? Get you killed?

Presented by Audible and Higher Ground, and produced by Talkhouse and Western Sound, Fela Kuti: Fear No Man features everyone from President Barack Obama to Ayo Edebiri, Brian Eno, Burna Boy, David Byrne, Flea, Jay-Z, Paul McCartney, Questlove, Santigold and many more, journeying deep into the soul of Afrobeat to explore the transformative power of art, and the role that artists can play in this current moment of global unrest.

Fela Kuti: Fear No Man is an uncategorizable mix of oral history, musicology, deep dive journalism and cutting edge sound design, and is now available in full, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more below, and in Jad Abumrad's recent interviews with CNN's Amanpour, NPR's Morning Edition, NPR's 1A and more. 

Praise For Fela Kuti: Fear No Man

"Deeply reported and sonically glorious…a stunning eight-hour immersion into Fela's life and music—and into volatile post-colonial Nigeria, in which we glimpse flashes of our own precarious time"

– The New Yorker

"Jad Abumrad's return to podcasting finds him in characteristically compelling form. The Radiolab creator reprises the approach he honed in Dolly Parton's America, melding his distinct flavor of expansive sound design with a deep historical and musicological curiosity"

– Vulture, 10 Narrative Podcasts We Loved This Year

"The bio-pod from Radiolab creator Jad Abumrad asks big questions about a larger-than-life character and delivers on an equal scale...emotional insights and astounding anecdotes to fill out the life of a superstar who invented his own genre and used it to stand up to an oppressive government. The reporting is first-rate, and the music is undeniably funky"

– Washington Post

"It's hard not to be wowed by the cast list of people paying homage to one of the greatest African musicians ever in this series about his impact…Until you're wrongfooted by a gripping narrative about his rhythm pianist's father being murdered for his beliefs – and how Kuti bravely championed his family. It's a fascinating, passionate biography"

– The Guardian

"It feels fitting that this series about a musical pioneer should come with such immersive and imaginative sound design. It's a measure of the rich storytelling, the wonderful music and the wild anecdotes that run through Fear No Man that, even after 12 episodes, I didn't want it to end"

– Financial Times

"A 12-episode series about Fela Kuti, an innovative Nigerian musician. In the 1970s he fused a traditional west African sound with the funk, jazz and soul music of black America. In doing so he pioneered a new genre: Afrobeat"

– The Economist, Best Podcasts of 2025

"Thoroughly researched, an expansive effort that walks through the nuances that made Kuti who he became, the encounter that radicalized him, his passion for afrocentric intellect, his complex relationship with women, and as a father"

– OkayAfrica

"One can glean a little bit of Fela Kuti's life from numbers: 27 wives, all of whom he married during the same ceremony, at the same time; 100 arrests; 46 studio albums…This podcast retraces the life, music, and rebellion of one of Africa's most important artists"

– Air Mail

"The podcast has all the high quality production value and on-location original audio that listeners would expect from a veteran like Abrumrad, but there is also a great deal of nuance...It has something in common with Kuti's music: there is a strong sense of discovery"

– Podcast Review, 10 Best Podcasts of 2025