if so, i want to know before toyin snaps it up!
ken
This article sees youth culture from a wrong perspective. Moralising its dynamics would not answer the crucial questions one should ask: What is it about the Nigerian condition that yields such a creative effluents of musical, comical and fashion dynamics? What is it about the Nigerian society that makes obscenity, for instance, a rich source of entertainment and wealth?
Achille Mbembe is one scholar i have read who takes popular culture serious as a social dimension of an African predicament. Laughter, for instance, has a significant role to play in the attempt by the citizens to deal with what he calls the "banality of power". The people deliberately misrepresent the body of the ruler through obscene frameworks that help them release tension. Mbembe's On the Postcolony was one of the books that enabled me examine the incidence of laughter in Nigeria in "Hilarity and the Nigerian Condition," my study of the significance of stand up comedy as a mean by which Nigerians mediate their relationship with the Nigerian state. I have also studied the rise and ouevres of Gbenga Adeboye who probably was the precursor of stand up comedy in Nigeria. Unfortunately, i have heard serious minded scholars put down comedies, music and entertainment generally, as nonsensical pastimes.
Thus, popular culture deserves more than just a moralising and absolute rejection. There is a trajectory behind it that should intrigue genuine scholarship.
Adeshina Afolayan--
Between Naija Jams and Nigerian Youths.................
Ask 100 Nigerian youths who's the Minister of Youths??? You will get the result. Ask them what are the agenda to develop a country? How could Nigeria come out of the National Economy crisis and other social and infrastructural problems?
Many would tell you "I'm not interested in all that, ask politicians". In fact these are people who find it difficult to attain 2"1 grade in University. Yet all social media have been bombarded with the "Societal Problems" called Artistes; Olamide and Don-Jazzy feud...These are people who have contributed to the vices of young Nigerians, by uneducated distractions. What message has Olamide passed to Nigerians? Lil Kesh? and the rest.. READ MORE
http://africanripples.com/ between-naija-jams-and- nigerian-youths/
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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
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-- kenneth w. harrow professor of english michigan state university department of english 619 red cedar road room C-614 wells hall east lansing, mi 48824 ph. 517 803 8839 harrow@msu.edu
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