Monkey Banana

AMG Review of Monkey Banana

Richie Unterberger
All Music Guide

With two tracks of about a dozen minutes each, Monkey Banana was really more an extended single than a proper album, reflecting a time during which Fela's music was moving even more into long extended grooves. Both of the two cuts, "Monkey Banana" and "Sense Wiseness," have his characteristic blends of improvisational-sounding trades between various instruments and lead and chanting backup vocals, along with his minor-based melodies. "Monkey Banana" reflects his social consciousness in deploring the poor conditions of workers' lives in Nigeria. "Sense Wiseness" has a funkier beat and prominent high, glistening electric keyboards, the backdrop for lyrics criticizing the educated segment of Africa's population for absorbing Western ways. Monkey Banana was combined with another 1975 album, Excuse O, on a 2001 CD reissue on MCA.