Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Between Naija Jams and Nigerian Youths.................

Dear Sir,

Your response is utterly befuddling. I am not even sure i know where to pick up an appropriate reply. I have no quarrel with anyone who wants to see popular culture as immorality, but my point is that there is more to it than just a disdainful put-down. Popular culture is a phenomenon instigated by our postcolonial predicament. Thus, there is more to it than meet the eye. Ebenezer Obadare is releasing a fundamental book that sees popular culture as alternative means of resistance. And here you are talking of Britney Spear and Taylor Swift and the others as tools of western imperialism! What does that mean? 

If it is the immoral you see in all these creativity, then shouldn't you be interested in an enlightening explanation rather than the bland and blanket moral rejection you threw out that stops further reflection of these stuffs? I am wondering how many books you have read about popular culture. That could be a wonderful place to commence an understanding of its uniqueness. 

The creativity of the Nigerian music and entertainment scene is mind-blowing!  

 

Adeshina Afolayan, PhD
Department of Philosophy
University of Ibadan

+23480-3928-8429

On Thursday, January 7, 2016 10:53 PM, AKIN T. GEORGE <akintgeorge@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello and Thanks for your comments.

Although I was not the author of the article but I concurred with its contents entirely.

"This article sees youth culture from a wrong perspective"
How is that possible as the author was only trying to highlight the moral decadence among our youths as a result of excessive consumption of American/Western influenced form of Hellenistic music a.ka Naija Jams. What you referred to as "Popular Music/Culture", when observed carefully through the lens of Madonna, Britney Spears, Chris Brown, Taylor Swift etc are nothing but tools used by the western dominated media machine to propagate their evil beliefs/lifestyles over the rest of the world and thereby ensure total domination.

It is understood that decades of government misrule in the Nigeria had led to frustrations among the youths and this frustration can be manifested in many forms - pro or counter-culture. But we also have the duty to guide and correct our youths when they are going astray. That's a major difference between us and the Western Pop culture in which a parent has no disciplinary control over his children.

What is pop culture but a western inspired term which has been adopted by the Nigerian media. In the 90's and before each of form of entertainment has its own category and none is referred to as pop culture (or pop music), why now, because our people continue to suffer from that Colonial Mentality which implied that everything from the White Man is good, modern and should be incorporated into our own culture. Why cant we look toward China and India that were thriving economically alongside their culture?

Nigerian Entertainment culture and industry has come a long way in defining itself. The Nigerian music industry has been evolving over time, but we have never seen anything like this before - crass and open sexualisation of females, worshiping of money and fame in their lyrics, excessive imitation of American music. We have seen this evolved in the early 90's in HipHop music industry and have you noted its shocking negative effects on the African-American society? We don't pray for our youths to go the same way.

Unfortunately, i have heard serious minded scholars put down comedies, music and entertainment generally, as nonsensical pastimes. I don't put down comedies or any form of entertainment as long as it is responsible and contributing to the good of the society. The so called Pop Culture that our youth are imitating, has been exposed thanks to internet platforms like YouTube, Facebook etc, as nothing but evil-inspired, mind controlling form of entertainment that is laden with Subliminal Messaging to conform everyone to a particular pattern of thinking and behaviour. You need to do further research to see how evil the American/Western entertainment industry is.

I do appreciate the authors you have quoted in your short write up, but every writer is entitled to his/her opinion and is majorly influenced by his thoughts and environment at a particular point in time. As a former student of Anthropology and after having lived in Africa, Europe and North America, any book or author will have little influence on my opinions. I will rather make my own judgement based on my comparative observation of the situations of things around me, culturally in African and the western society - are they better than us culturally or are they worse off?

My Regards

Akin T. George

On Thu, Jan 7, 2016 at 2:24 PM, Adeshina Afolayan <shina73_1999@yahoo.com> wrote:

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

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

On Thu, 7 Jan, 2016 at 4:44 PM, A.T. GEORGE

<akintgeorge@gmail.com> wrote:

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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