“At the end of the 60s, superstar drummer and angriest man in rock Ginger Baker was on the verge of collapse. Strung out on heroin, deeply grieving Jimi Hendrix’s death, and alienated from his former Cream and Blind Faith bandmates, he needed a new direction. He found it in Nigeria, where he decamped after driving a Range Rover from Algeria across the Sahara Desert. (A madcap adventure captured in the 1971 documentary Ginger Baker in Africa). Once in Lagos, Baker started jamming with Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti. The meeting of these two musical forces of nature produced a suite of recordings. ‘Baker’s drumming appeared on several albums alongside the Nigerian king of afrobeat,’ writes Okay Africa, ‘including Why Black Man Dey Suffer (1971), Live! (1972) and Stratavarious (1972).’ Kuti’s longtime drummer and arranger—and inventor of the “afrobeat”—Tony Allen was highly impressed with Baker’s range, and Nigerians, as Jay…