Coffin For Head of State is among Fela’s most courageous responses to the Nigerian army’s destruction of Kalakuta on 18 February 1977. During the attack, Fela’s mother, aged 78, a veteran of Nigeria’s struggle for independence from British colonial rule and an early campaigner for women’s rights, was thrown out of an upstairs window, fracturing a leg. Fela believed the assault led to his mother’s death 14 months later.