Nigerian Singer-Saxman Fela Protests With Music : Activism: He is out of jail under a new regime. And he expects to lead his country some day.

If 2 Live Crew doesn’t quite fit your ideal of the heroically embattled artistic spirit, you can always consider the story of Fela Anikulapo Kuti.

The Nigerian saxophonist and bandleader (who shared the bill with reggae singer Jimmy Cliff Thursday night at the Open Air Theatre in San Diego and will appear again Sunday at the Greek Theatre) sets a far more serious-minded example of threatened free speech than the phallically fixated rappers from Miami.

Since the early 1970s, Fela, now 51, has been among the most stubborn and outspoken protest singers in popular music, one who hasn’t hesitated to heap scorn on his country’s leaders. Fela’s mockery hasn’t played well with authorities in his homeland, a former British colony that has been dominated by military rule for most of its 30 years of independence.

“It is being educated in the English way that makes you a big man (in Nigeria),” Fela said in a recent telephone interview from a tour stop in Chicago. “My message was ‘Think African. Make schools read African history.’ The people listened, but the government did not. That is when my confrontation with the government started.”

That confrontation held harsh consequences. In 1977, according to press reports, a force of soldiers and police attacked the communal enclave where Fela lived with his large entourage. The compound was torched, Fela was beaten, and his elderly mother suffered injuries that contributed to her death soon afterward. In 1981, Fela says, he suffered another severe beating at the hands of the police.

In 1984, as he was about to embark on a U.S. tour, Fela was arrested on a currency smuggling charge and sentenced to five years in prison. He served 18 months before a new regime took power and freed him in the wake of international protest and the sentencing judge’s admission that he had acted under military pressure.

The bitterness of those experiences has come out in Fela’s songs, but he says his goal is social reform, not retribution.

“When you start to think of revenge, you start to think of hate. I don’t believe in hating people. I know my time is coming when I will be able to deal with the matter spiritually--by spiritual force, by the power of the word.”

In Fela’s mystical construct, spiritual force will one day carry him to power in Nigeria. It is a conviction he has held since 1981, when he fell into a sudden visionary trance.

“I was told what my purpose was and my condition in this world,” Fela said. “I think I’m going to lead my people one day. I’m sure of it.”

Fela’s music became politically charged after his first visit to the United States, in 1969. The trip failed to secure him his hoped-for foothold in the American music scene (he would not return to America until 1986), but he came away radicalized by contacts with the Black Panther Party and other black nationalists.

Since then, Fela has seen music as a tool for protest, not for pop’s more typical explorations of relationships.

“Love--this sort of thing is not important in the African sense. Most African traditional songs don’t sing about love. They sing about happenings in society, about stories in society, about proverbs,” he said.

Fela also ignores most other basic Western pop conventions. His songs stretch over entire album sides, making it unlikely that his recordings will receive substantial radio play.

Moreover, he has a policy of never performing a song after he has recorded it--a rejection of the usual play-the-hits pop touring strategy.

“The drive behind my success has been writing new things all the time. It’s like a challenge, facing the audience with new stuff,” Fela said. “It is important for me to have the music spread, but I will not do it commercially.”

That means no abridgement of his long opuses to make them more radio-friendly.

“I refuse. I cannot cut my music. I have too much to say.”