Peter Parker Has Been Moving to Fela Since 2012, and Nobody Told Us

This one is giving "wait, what?" energy. Andrew Garfield, yes, the actual Spider-Man, the British one, has come out to say that when he got cast as Peter Parker back in 2012, he built his whole playlist around Fela Kuti, and that Fela's sound literally shaped how he moved inside that Spider-Man suit. My brother has been swinging through New York to Afrobeat energy this whole time, and we're only just hearing about it now, over a decade later. Who kept this from us?

"There was something in the sound and the rhythm that was really useful to me for that character," he said, which, honestly, makes sense the moment you actually think about it. Fela's music doesn't just play, it moves you, shoulders, waist, everything, there's a whole physical conversation happening in that horn section. If you're trying to find a loose, rhythmic, unpredictable way to move a man who can stick to walls and swing off buildings, somebody's saxophone solo in Lagos in the '70s was clearly more useful than any Hollywood movement coach.

And then he added that Fela's "revolutionary spirit" also fed into the justice-seeking side of Spider-Man, which is giving "white man discovers Fela was fighting military government and feels things" energy, but also, fair, Fela really was out here being Spider-Man before Spider-Man, fighting actual oppressive forces with just music, confidence, and absolutely zero fear of consequences.

Now obviously, Nigerian Twitter has immediately claimed this as a national achievement, because that's what we do. Fela inspired Spider-Man means Fela colonized Hollywood from the afterlife, abeg, add it to the list with Afrobeats and Jollof diplomacy. At this point, Fela Kuti's reach stretches further posthumously than some sitting governments manage while alive.

So next time you rewatch The Amazing Spider-Man, pay attention to those suit movements, somewhere in there is a man from Abeokuta who never needed a radioactive spider bite to move like that. He just needed Afrobeat and zero respect for military government.