African China, Nigerian popular music, national development and the search for musical idiom

Abstract

Popular music in Nigeria, especially guerrilla hip-hop, seems to be enjoying unprecedented popularity since the enthronement of democracy in 1999. This popular art form, with its focus on urban street life, has become a dominant means of expression within contemporary Nigerian adolescent/youth culture. Interestingly, therefore, it speaks directly to issues of identity, culture, nationhood and nationalism. Invariably, this art form has become a pie chart from where Nigeria's sociopolitical position can be easily appraised. The paper addresses numerous issues, but most importantly, it examines how Hip-hop artists experience and interpret their lives, and how they respond to conditions in their communities. How do popular music artists who emerge from economically and marginalised social contexts use their song lyrics to facilitate a consciousness of resistance among the members of their respective social groups? These questions are explored in a content analysis of the music of African China, the most socially conscious of all the recent popular artists in Nigeria. The study attempts to explore the role of music in the construction of counter-hegemonic alternative culture in impoverished postcolonial Nigeria. The analysis suggests that China's lyrical project of resistance incorporates a three-part method of social critique: (1) depictions of the suffering endured as a member of a marginalised social group, (2) critiques of and resistance against social structures that produce this suffering, and (3) calls for unity, particularly among the members of the respective marginalised groups, for the sake of improving the conditions of social life. I therefore argue that despite the fact that popular music in Nigeria has become the vibrant means of social criticism, it has equally reconstructed another realm or site for sociopolitical engagements – a public sphere from where government can be appraised and the people can come to terms with the socio-realities of their lives as postcolonial people.