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The booming Nigerian music industry is having a tremendous impact on the global music scene, but at the local level it is beset by difficulties brought about by copyright enforcement. The very vibrancy of this industry is attested through numerous kinds of sonic outputs amidst the ongoing process of digitalisation, especially as evidenced by the current mainstream youth-driven hip-hop hybrid music genre known as 'Afrobeats'. However, insufficient attention has been given by scholars to the availability, or lack, of spaces for independent and/or emerging artists to create songs outside the tight control of copyright and intellectual property laws. This is especially true for musicians who produce 'digital mixes'. One issue that comes up rather often in reference to the production and consumption of music in this heavily regulated internet-era context is piracy, which, though ethically problematic, has nevertheless persisted in the absence of meaningful ways to allow independent and emerging artists the freedom to ply their trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The twenty-first century ushered in a new era in African popular culture. Hip hop, a popular genre of musical expression, which borrowed extensively from Western and African idioms and iconography of power and social relations, took a decisive turn. The themes and narratives of twenty-first century African hip hop mirror similar global forms in their conception and glorification of fandom, stardom, commodification and sexualization of women's bodies, violence, and superfluous display of wealth. In this article, I examine some of the rare instances in which Nigerian male hip hop artists have used their talent and poetic license to call attention of the public to the economic and socio-political disenfranchisement of women. This article goes beyond a content analysis of the songs to underscore how core transformations in Nigeria's democratic process since 1999, when civil rule was reintroduced, have shaped the circumstances under which hip hop artists rethink their sexualization and commodification of women's bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts an intervention in contemporary popular music classification. It argues that popular musicians do not only choose the titles to their works, but go further to define the genres of these works. The dynamic at play is such that most popular musicians claim to produce works of different and new genres with each new work they create. By engaging with the works of a selection of Nigerian popular musicians, the paper shows a trend of opportunistic productions within the political music genre by artists not otherwise known for political songs. Through a discussion of the textual and contextual elements of the material, the paper argues that an increased number of popular musicians have started producing protest political music and unity political music, following Nigeria's democratization in 1999, as a way of alerting audiences of their political astuteness and in an attempt to court political relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]