Nigerian Popular Music: Social Mediation Amid Musicality
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Date
2022
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Publisher
International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS)
Abstract
Music is a fundamental feature of the African society.
One of its indispensable values is its entertainment function.
Music has also been used overtime to engender positive social
changes in the society. Using this popular medium, traditional
African musicians and poets have used their composing
ingenuity not only to please their audience but also to lampoon,
satirize, moralize, preach and call for individual and collective
changes or conformity to established social, religious, or cultural
norms, as the circumstances dictate. In Nigeria’s recent past, the
late Fela Anikulapo- Kuti, Sunny Okosun, Ebenezer Obey, and
Osita Osadebe are examples of musicians who used their music
to comment on the challenges of life in Nigeria and elsewhere.
They also gained popularity from the entertainment value of
their various kinds of music. However, commercialisation
brought about by the realities of the socio-political and economic
conditions of life seems to have made the music of emerging
Nigerian musicians lose social relevance. This article studies via
document analysis the thematic trends in some of the songs of
Asa, a popular Nigerian musician who has received wide acclaim
across the world. This paper concludes that social relevance and
commercial success are two states which can be achieved
simultaneously by emerging Nigerian musicians without
apprehension, especially in a world which rates commercial
success as a parameter for popularity.