Upside Down was released in 1976, the same year as Zombie and during an intense three-year period in which Fela recorded 24 albums of new material. For Upside Down, Fela recruited the help of his friend Sandra Izsadore. Sandra, an American, was a black rights activist who introduced Fela to the works and history of many of America's great revolutionaries – Malcolm X, Huey Newton, Angela Davis and more – which informed his own theories on Blackism. In Upside Down, a well-travelled African looks to the dictionary to find the definition of upside down, and finds the perfect description of the African situation.