Abstract
AbstractThis article discusses the ethnicization of Igbo popular music amid renewed secessionist calls for the defunct state of Biafra. It engages with people's interpretation of ethnic sentiments as expressed in the music of two Igbo popular musicians in Nigeria and the significance of this phenomenon. Given the undercurrents of ethnic rifts, which preceded the Nigeria-Biafra war (1967–1970), postwar Nigerian society remains fraught with questions of ethnonationalism. Within the heated polity, Igbo popular musicians routinely engage in nostalgic discourses about Biafra by articulating the catastrophes of the past and mobilizing the populace to confront present challenges. Specifically, the article engages with the dialectics of ethnonationalism in contemporary Igbo popular music via critical analysis of current repertoire. It contends that Igbo popular musicians deploy ethnic memories, symbols, and cultural essentials as potent political, communication, and mobilization strategies to nurture the consciousness of the Igbo nation in Nigeria.
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