A musician like Fela Ransome-Kuti comes along once in a century. A sonic innovator and a political revolutionary, the Nigerian pioneer of Afrobeat (along with drummer Tony Allen, musical director of Kuti's greatest group, Africa '70) released dozens of records and played countless concerts that thrilled and inspired millions of people—and scared the hell out of his government. Kuti—who died of AIDS-related complications in 1997 at age 58—was a pugnacious, libidinous combination of James Brown, Bob Marley, and Che Guevara. An iconoclastic icon, Kuti lived an almost inconceivably large life. Alex Gibney's documentary Finding Fela uses the making of the hit 2009 Broadway musical Fela! as a framing device to help recount Kuti's momentous existence. Gibney zooms in on Fela! choreographer Bill T. Jones strategizing with his writers, actors, and other accomplices about how best to tell this man's big story. Gibney also weaves footage from the play itself with interviews involving journalists, Kuti's children, his biographers, band members, and his American lover, Sandra Izsadore. This panoptic portrait of Kuti is rounded out with scenes of his extraordinary bands in action, his daily life in Kalakuta Republic (a compound that served as a communal living space and recording studio, and to which Kuti conferred nation status), and archival interviews. What emerges is a figure who thrived amid chaos and excess. As for the use of footage from the musical Fela!, it feels like a crutch and retroactive product placement. Although Bill T. Jones dispenses many perceptive insights, Kuti's story can stand on its own. The real Fela Kuti deserves an exclamation mark far more than the Broadway one. by Dave Segal