Hip Hop Revisited1 Wale Adedeji Ph.D
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DOI: 10.21276/sb.2017.3.3.1 Scholars Bulletin ISSN 2412-9771 (Print) (A Multidisciplinary Journal) ISSN 2412-897X (Online) An Official Publication of “Scholars Middle East Publishers”, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Website: http://scholarsbulletin.com/ Africanity and New Wave Popular Music Style in Nigeria: “Afro” Hip Hop Revisited1 Wale Adedeji Ph.D. Dept. of Performing and Film Arts, Elizade University, Ilara-Mokin, Ondo State, Nigeria *Corresponding Author: Wale Adedeji Ph.D Email: [email protected] Abstract: The concept of Africanity traverses many decades, being a socio-political ethos or cogitation perceived as manifest reaction against slavery and colonization. As a resistance mode, imbuement of the Africanity philosophy has shaped people of African descent in the Diaspora and many post-slavery generations all over the world in maintaining their African roots identity. This paper examines the concept of Africanity in the 21st Century Africa, using the Nigerian popular music scene as a paradigm. Against the backdrop of the present mainstream Hip hop music style referred to as „Afro hip hop‟, the study will use music and video analytical procedures with the objective of identifying the various media through which hip hop artistes project their Africanity. It is quite evident that music artistes still strive to maintain their African identity despite subscribing to a Western originated music style. This is made manifest through language use, nomenclature, message, visual projection, and sonic arrangement among other parameters. Keywords: Africanity, Popular music, Hip hop, Music and identity, Nigeria. INTRODUCTION Africans and people of African descent without the The general notion of taking pride in the portrayal of the African culture. African roots heritage and being proud of black culture has been of paramount importance to African people in Music being an expressive art and an the continent and even more important to people of incontestable conduit for cultural dispersal therefore African descent in the diaspora. This concept traverses makes it a fertile ground for identity formulation and in many decades, being a socio-political ethos or this instance an indispensable tool for the propagation cogitation perceived as manifest reaction against of “Africanity”. In Nigeria the popular music scene is slavery and colonization as the case may be, have vibrant and dynamic parading various music styles and always mutated under different appellations like “Pan- genre among which is hip hop- a product of global Africanism”, “Black Power Movement”, cultural flow. Hip hop enjoys greater acceptability and “Afrocentrism” and in this case “Africanity” all sharing popularity among youths and the genre s new wave the same principle of extolling and exhibiting the artistes are now using its popularity and the vibrancy of African identity in all ramifications. the music industry to push their Nigerian identity agenda and express their Africanity to the fullest. The importance of culture in realizing the “Africanity” creed cannot be over-emphasized as Background to Popular Music Scene in Nigeria culture is an important aspect of human existence, an Popular music has generally been regarded as embodiment of people‟s belief system and guiding the type of music form or practice that is targeted principles that bind them in terms of social, political towards audience satisfaction; it comes with crowd and economic subjects. According to the Pan –African appeal and encompasses several styles. It is readily cultural manifesto of 1969 “Culture is the essential comprehensible to a large proportion of the population cement of every social group, its primary means of and its appreciation requires little or no knowledge of intercommunication and of coming to grip with the musical theory [1]. Popular music under different outside world, it is its soul, its materialization, and its nomenclature has emerged in Nigeria over the years capacity for change” (O.A.U.) This in essence is based on the above premise and process. indicative of the fact that culture is the nucleus around which identity is built and to erase a man‟s culture is to Scholars on Nigerian popular music studies erase his identity. Therefore no African identity can be have proposed two major lines of influences on the formulated neither can Africanity be projected by development of modern popular music in Nigeria thus: the Islamic influence and the Christian influence [2-6]. 1The earliest version of this paper was presented at the 6th Toyin Falola international conference on Africa (TOFAC) at Redeemers University, Nigeria in July 2016. 75 Adedeji Wale.; Sch. Bull.; Vol-3, Iss-3 (Mar, 2017):75-82 The influence of Christianity aided the formulation of musical idiom like jùjú which borrowed greatly from The greatest influence and pioneer of this art the church choral music among other forms of form is DJ Cool Herc a Jamaican migrant from syncretism. Likewise the influence of the Islamic Kingston who settled in the Bronx, New York and religion gave birth to fújì music which evolved out of brought with him the Jamaican style of Dee-jaying, the Muslim wéré or ajísààrì Ramadan (fasting) music. improvisation and chanting on the most current music, using popular sound instruments of the period with While these two lines of influences left dexterity while combining two turntables [8]. Rap indelible marks on the Nigerian music scene and music thus, is the foundation on which hip hop is built resulted in the formation of most of its major popular while hip hop is a youth movement and culture which is music genres, it is also pertinent to take cognizance of a multifaceted. It is therefore not unlikely that at times new factor that has changed the way Nigerians perceive rap and hip hop are used interchangeably. and perform music: this is „globalization‟, a precursor to the production or formation of different hybrids of Rap music (albeit hip hop ) is always music culture and sub-cultures among which is the domiciled on the street where itinerant DJs take sway booming Nigerian hip hop brand named “Afro hip hop”. with lyrics portraying everyday struggle of the average black American from a storytelling cum narrative In fact of various intercultural influences on procedure. Hip hop therefore come to represent the the Nigerian music scene, one thing that is however voice of African Americans and how they negotiate discernable is that the country‟s popular music output marginalization and socio-economic struggles .As still remains deeply rooted in the indigenous Nigerian summed up by Rose tradition through appropriation by artists to project their cultural identity. The popular afrobeat music created by [Hip hop] is a cultural form that attempts to Fela Anikulapo-Kuti is a true exemplar of this notion negotiate the experiences of marginalization, while the popularity of hip hop music in Nigeria also brutality, truncated opportunity, and gives credence to the capacity of artists in combining oppression within cultural imperatives of the local musical culture with foreign influence while African-American and Caribbean history, still retaining a strong indigenous identity [7]. identity and community. It is the tension between the cultural fractures produced by This experimentation and assimilation is post-industrial oppression and the binding ties noticeable in genre like jùjú which has combined the of black cultural expressivity that sets the use of Yorùbá talking drum with Western critical frame for the development of hip hop. instrumentations like guitar and keyboard to produce a [9] perfect mix of entertainment music rich in Yorùbá oral text. The strong retention of Nigeria„s cultural identity In terms of composition, hip hop is an and tradition is also vivid in the mainstream hip hop, amalgamation of musical styles from rap (its where the Yorùbá language, culture and music practice foundation) to rhythm and blues, to Jamaican dancehall, has been of tremendous influence. Franknel also opines while the underpinning theme is the creation of a that “while contemporary Nigerian rap is obviously peculiar urban street culture which is broad extending aimed at an international audience, it is also clearly from music to street arts of graffiti, fashion and sports. rooted in Nigerian culture [with] song titles and vernacular that regularly delve into pidgin English and Nigeria’s “Afro” Hip hop local languages” (2006: 299). It is an undisputable fact that one of the major cultural exports from Nigeria today apart from Origin of Hip hop Nollywood is music and the genre is Hip hop. This is The global influence of hip hop music and its indexed through the arrays of artistes that can be termed accompanying urban cultural manifestation from as the country‟s hip hop ambassadors representing America is undisputed, and this music form has found Nigeria‟s cultural identity on the national, continental itself in the forefront in many countries. In Nigeria, and international scene. There have been a lot of youths find hip hop culturally attractive and its mentions, awards and recognition in Africa and on the insurgence timely making them to embraced the genre international scene for these players indicating the as a major form of musical expression. Hip hop‟s origin influence Nigeria‟s hip hop is having on the global is linked to the genesis of Rap which has been traced to popular music scene. The Bronx, an ethnic community in West New York where DJs developed the art of talking over sampled The emergence and evolution of hip hop on the beats in a particular manner. The DJ or „turntablist‟ [4] Nigerian music scene from the late 1980‟s has attracted will provide the soundtracks with the latest rhythm a lot of scholarly documentations [10-15] to mention a while those that do the talking or rhyming on it are few. These scholarly writings supported that Nigerian called the MC or Master of Ceremonies.