What a loss! Modernity in contention in Saheed Osupa's Fuji music

Abstract

ABSTRACT Perhaps modernity's greatest challenge is the simultaneous reception and interrogation that it continues to face in the postcolonial world. If the revolution that the new media engenders as a culmination of modernity is anything to go by, then there is a sense in which it has further facilitated the consolidation of popular music tradition in Africa, especially Nigeria. Nevertheless, the consolidation process of the patronage of modernity in the domain of popular music has also provided a platform for the interrogation of the reception of western modes of thought and practice in the postcolonial world. Against this backdrop, this paper examines Saheed Osupa's 2007 music video album, Reliable. Specific attention will be given to the ‘Olaju De’ track in which he deplores Yoruba people's outright rejection of modes and practices of indigenous knowledge upon the advent of western education and the brand of civilisation it offers. The paper specifically turns to the implications of the invocation of the memory of the Yoruba indigenous mode of determining child paternity as against the contemporary patronage of DNA. The paper also considers other issues that centralise the time-honoured discourse of the dialectic of tradition and modernity in the postcolonial African world. In conclusion, the paper argues that against the backdrop of the fuji music thesis, not only will the discourse of modernity continue to stand out as a contested space, but it will also continue to underpin the contradictions it produces in the postcolonial Africa.