Transethnic Allegory

Abstract

The present postmodern cultural and linguistic (re)presentation of the Yoruba world finds an invaluable transethnic expression within the space of Nigerian hip hop, a fact that has escaped sustained critical commentary. While this urban youth development suggests a transgression of conventional cultural boundaries, it ironically inscribes a statement of aesthetic and philosophical dynamism locating the Yoruba world as open to multicultural adaptations and self-critical interrogations of ethnic heritage. This article explores the adoption of hip hop by urban Yoruba youth as a development informed by the global transcultural gaze energized by the imperatives of late capitalism, a combustible impulse that defies the cartography of modernist containment. It reveals how hip hop empowers Yoruba youth to re-cast themselves within the Nigerian nation-state and the economy of the traditional Yoruba culture. This influences a sense of transethnic bonding among Nigerian youths and challenges youth invisibility, just as it draws new terms for gender relations and the openness of this Yoruba set of humanity to other cultures.