Editor's note: This is an update of the profile published in December of the great African musician Fela Kuti. The original post was published when it was announced that Kuti would become the first African musician ever awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Now this week, he is on the list of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees and again is a historic "first" — the first African pop star to be inducted into the hall.

Fela Kuti, the Afrobeat pioneer and activist who died in 1997, now holds two landmark honors.

On December 19, he became the first African musician ever awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, joining an elite group of legends like The Beatles, Johnny Cash, Aretha Franklin, Bob Marley and Frank Sinatra — all recognized for making "creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording."

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