Fela Kuti's songs are as close to uncoverable as great popular music gets. They don't leave much room for interpretation: Fela's regal, commanding presence was a lot of what he was selling, and to mess with the watchworks of Africa 70 or Egypt 80's arrangements is to risk breaking them. Fela's patois often sounds totally wrong in a voice that doesn't come by it naturally, too—and it doesn't help that a lot of his best songs were well over 10 minutes long.

Nonetheless, the Red Hot Organization has put together a second tribute album to Fela, who would have turned 75 next week had he not died of AIDS-related complications in 1997. As with the first (2002's Red Hot + Riot), the project's M.O. is to assemble a bunch of American and African musicians in new combinations and see what they come up with; as with that album, it's mostly yielded wild pitches. Red Hot + Fela largely presents itself as a blur of lesser, briefer imitations of Fela's Afrobeat grooves, liberally sprinkled with pro forma rapping and vocalists singing lyrics that have lost the political fire they once had.

1. Africa – Baloji & L’Orchestre de la Katuba featuring Kuku
2. Lady – tUnE-yArDs, ?uestlove, Angelique Kidjo + Akua Naru
3.Yellow Fever – Spoek Mathambo, +Zaki Ibrahim
4. No Buredi (No Bread) – Nneka, Sinkane, Amayo + Superhuman Happiness
5. Who No Know Go No Know – Just A Band + Childish Gambino
6. Trouble Sleep Yanga Wake Am – My Morning Jacket w/ Merrill Garbus + Brittany Howard
7. Sorrow Tears and Blood – Kyp Malone and Tunde Adebimpe, Kronos Quartet + Stuart Bogie
8. I.T.T. – Superhuman Happiness w/ Sahr Ngaujah, Abena Koomson + Rubblebucket
9. Afrodisco Beat 2013 – Tony Allen, M1 + Baloji
10. Gentleman – Just A Band, Bajah + Chance the Rapper
11. Highlife Time – Gender Infinity
12. Zombie – Spoek Mathambo + Cerebral Cortex + Frown
13. Go Slow – KING