Diachronizing the Popular: from Hip-Hop to Orality

Abstract

The development of studies in African music has been pioneered in the 
studies of scholars across the globe. African scholars whose theories help to 
shape the development do so in the quest to map out the strategy that 
would march the usual canonical parameter often seen in the fight for an 
erudite scholarship. In this regard as well, efforts have also been made to see 
how globalization and civilization have shaped various artistic developments, 
music inclusive. However, there is a silent trend in the movement of music as 
an art or a process of socialization. Being an art, when it is African in nature, 
there is a need to see the diffusive nexus or praxis that might have arisen as 
a result of global influence, possibly to see the level of syncretism within the 
African indigenous orientation of music and its current blend with westernoriented form - Hip Hop. The work sets out the origin of the term "Hip-Hop" 
while it also pays attention to the nature of African music, and the place of 
African oral poetry in the artistic rendition of the African version of Hip-Hop. 
In Its specific orientation, it also maps out Nigeria as a case for further 
investigation.