Upside Down’ and ‘Zombie’, both released in 1976, were made at the midpoint of an extraordinary three-year purple period during which Fela recorded 24 albums of new material. ‘Upside Down’ was written by Fela to portray a worldly travelled African who searches the dictionary and finds the definition of upside down - a perfect description of the African situation. ‘Upside Down’ is unusual in that it includes a second lead vocalist, Fela’s American friend Sandra Izsadore. Izsadore was a black rights activist and introduced him to the writings of revolutionary thinkers such as Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, Huey Newton and more who inspired Fela’s philosophy of Blackism.