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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]

The relevance of music to African commuting practices and sociocultural experiences offers interesting perspectives, not least, for an ethnomusicology of public culture. Of the different functional modes of public transportation available in modern Nigeria, road transportation is the most patronised. Following an ethnographic approach, and with reference to cultural anthropology and ethnomusicology, this article examines the nature of and reasons for everyday application of genres of Nigerian popular music to road travels. By nuancing the connections between transportation, rurality/urbanity and, say, hip hop, this article reveals how music and transport intersect to inform and shape music-making, social class, taste, place, and listening practices in one of Africa's most populous societies. [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]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on previous work documenting musical genre forms in the United States, this exploratory study reports the discovery of a new type, which the authors term the politically purposed genre. They find two major types: those sponsored by governments, which benefit from national distribution and legal protection, and an anti—status quo type supported by an opposition party or constituency that shares its critique of the existing sociopolitical and economic order. Four nation-cases have been examined: the People’s Republic of China, Chile, Serbia, and Nigeria. The authors examine each case in turn and close with a discussion of the limitations and possibilities of this discovery. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]