Original Sufferhead

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Robert Christgau	B+[8]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[9]
MusicHound World: The Essential Album Guide	[10]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[11]
Spin Alternative Record Guide	10/10[12]

The Evening Advertiser considered the album "a potent synthesis of Afro-beat, soul and jazz."^[13] The Northern Echo said that "the slick and spontaneous brass is superb, particularly the trumpets".^[3]

Reviewing a 1984 reissue, The New York Times called the album "less dynamically recorded [than Black President], and its songs ebb and flow more casually"; in 2001, the paper opined that it was one of Fela's best albums.^[14][15] The Buffalo News stated that it is "especially potent in [a] jazz-Afro music effect".^[16] In 1991, Spin said that "the beat, a propulsive cross between salsa and Sun Ra, is hypnotically persuasive".^[17] In 2000, the Orlando Sentinel said that the title track "is tinged with melancholy but exuberant, with percolating rhythms and an electric organ that manages to sound funereal and funky simultaneously."^[4]

In 2014, Fela's son Seun Kuti chose Original Sufferhead as one of his two favorite albums by Fela.^[18]

Side 1

1. "Power Show"

Side 2

1. "Original Sufferhead"