Browsing by Author "Adedeji, Wale"
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Item African Popular Culture and the Path of Consciousness: Hip Hop and the Culture of Resistance in Nigeria(Postcolonial Text, 2013-11) Adedeji, WaleHaving witnessed increasing popularity and boost in Africa from the 1990s, hip-hop is rapidly becoming a dominant culture among the youths as a vehicle of local social critique and global inter-connectivity in the public sphere. While incorporating elements from their own local cultures to appeal to home-grown sensibilities, hip-hop musicians have found a platform for getting their messages and ideas across to local audiences through music. However, in recent times hip-hop has been an object of constant criticism for veering off its path of consciousness with its projection of affluence, materialism (‘blings’), over-sexualisation, and misogynist(ic) messages by its artists. This paper argues that despite a lot of negative criticism trailing hip hop worldwide, Africa still remains a fertile ground where the genre is being deployed by youths as a vital tool of resistance and a powerful voice for socio-political and economic change. Using the Nigerian hip-hop scene and the critical analysis of the music of Sound Sultan, 2Face Idibia and Eedris Abdulkareem, I demonstrate the ways in which popular hip-hop music has now assumed huge cultural force for youths in urban Nigeria. I argue that the hip hop generation in Nigeria still believes in using the genre to effect a change in a country riddled with corruption and abuse of public office, thereby choosing the path of consciousness over commercialisation and large-scale hedonism amongst youth.Item Africanity and New Wave Popular Music Style in Nigeria: “Afro” Hip Hop Revisited(Scholars Bulletin, 2016-07) Adedeji, WaleThe 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.Item NEGOTIATING GLOBALIZATION THROUGH HYBRIDIZATION: HIP HOP AND THE CREATION OF CROSS-OVER CULTURE IN NIGERIAN POPULAR MUSIC(4th European Conference on African Studies (ECAS 4), 2011-06-18) Adedeji, WaleThe process of globalization has been of a tremendous impact on African societies while the status-quo of expressive cultures have obviously not remained the same due to this factor with popular music gradually becoming homogenized to fit into the Euro-American stereotypes. It is quite evident that the Nigerian popular music has been greatly influenced by the dictates and progression in the international scene due to global communication and cultural flows as exemplified by the popularity and proliferation of hip hop culture among the youths from the 1990s. Also a critical look at language use in music reveals that ‗English is the language of popular music, arguably a form of linguistic globalization‘ (Shuker 2005:127) while the glorification and promotion of foreign music styles especially hip hop and its cultural expressions is almost making the local music practices less fashionable. This paper explores the Nigerian popular music practice through the current mainstream hip hop and identifies how its practitioners have successfully formulated a sub-genre dubbed ‗Afro hip hop‘ through hybridization whereby African identity is portrayed and maintained by asserting linguistic independence with the use of Nigerian languages as medium of delivery through code-switching. This is also followed by appropriating indigenous popular music style like fújì to create a fusion that appeals to home-grown sensibilities while still subscribing to the global hip hop community. This paper reveals the effectiveness of ‗Afro hip hop‘ as hybrid music and how it was used as a strategy of resistance towards popular music homogenization brought about by globalization.Item Nigerian Hip Hop and the Yoruba Influence: “Rugeddy Baba” and the Negotiation of National Identity(Scholars Middle East Publishers, 2017) Adedeji, WaleIdentity is an integral part of human existence and as a cognitive phenomenon it is regarded as a basis for selfrealisation and actualisation. Popular culture is an important conduit through which identity can be formulated and expressed. Music on the other hand as an expressive art is a major appendage of popular culture and a fertile ground for identity negotiation and formulation, in this instance through language use. This paper investigates the music- Hip hop, the language- Yoruba and examines how the artiste- Ruggedman employs the use of the mother-tongue while exploiting the general acceptability of the Yoruba language to popularise hip hop music in Nigeria .The research argues that, through the artiste‟s Yoruba linguistic affiliation he is able to formulate a national identity with a language not his own in a country where there is an overt subscription to ethnic loyalty rather that national.Item PERFORMING ARTS AND ECONOMIC SELF RELIANCE IN NIGERIA: THE ELIZADE UNIVERSITY EXPERIENCE(WARIMA INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, 2014-11-26) Adedeji, Wale; Akinsipe, Felix; Afe, AdegokeThe fundamental concern of the Arts disciplines (Humanities) is with man and his complex nature, cognizantly his multifaceted relationships with the world around him and beyond. It is in this context that each Arts discipline tries to investigate and explain those aspects of man’s nature that particularly concern or challenge him. In a more specific context, the study and practise of Performing Arts is saddled with the expressions of these realities offering opportunities to display cultures and traditions while “mirroring” the society. In recent times there has been a sudden rise in interest and attention given to the creative and cultural industries especially with the popularity of Nigerian popular music and video film across Africa and beyond. Further to this, a lot of young minds have been inspired to seek university education in this area in order to develop their artistic instinct and build their creative capacity towards economic self-reliance. This paper highlight the objectives of the Elizade University Performing and Film Arts degree programme as it experiments with the concept of ‘total theatre’ incorporating drama, music, dance and film. Furthermore, the idea to deviate from the traditional nomenclature of ‘theatre arts’ by incorporating ‘film studies’ into the programme is being stressed here to portend the ability to produce thorough bred professional in the field that would eventually be ‘job givers’ and not ‘job seekers’ The paper also traces the origin of the Nigerian film industry now called ‘Nollywood’ and asserts that in the nearest future the Elizade Performing and film arts graduate will be ready to fill the capacity requirements of Nollywood, and be part of the generation to take the industry to the next level. It is hoped that this paper will generate more interest in emphasising economic sustainability through university education using the Elizade Performing and Film arts degree programme as an impetus.Item Representing Africa in Contemporary Nigerian Hip Hop: A Video Analysis of Ruggedman's “Ruggedy Baba”(Modern Research Studies, 2015-12) Adedeji, WaleSince MTV pioneered the art of music video broadcast in 1981, music video has gradually become one of the most important outlets for music promotion and an indispensable marketing strategy for an artiste. In recent times music video has almost assumed a life of its own and somehow larger than the music itself with a lot of investment in energy and finance being put into it by artists, labels and management. Africa on the other hand is catching on with this trend as there is an overt visibility of MTV Africa and other satellite television stations like Channel - O, Soundcity, Nigezie and Trace solely dedicated to promoting music videos. This paper examines the concept of music video in the Nigerian popular music context while extracting its functionality in the contemporary Nigerian hip hop genre. Against the backdrop of the ‘Ruggedy Baba’ video this research isolates the primary function of a video to music and argues that through visual representation of music, identities can be formulated as presented in ‘Ruggedy Baba’ where traditional Africa is prominently represented in a music genre deeply rooted in urban street culture.