Nigerian Music

Music of Nigeria
Hausa - Igbo - Yoruba
Apala - Fuji - Juju
Afrobeat - Afro-juju - Waka - Yo-pop
Hip hop - Reggae

Nigerian music has produced many kinds of folk and popular music, some of which are known throughout the world. This includes numerous styles of folk music relating to the dozens or hundreds of tribes and ethnic groups in the country, each with their own techniques, instruments

and songs. Little is known about the country's early music history prior to European contact, however, bronze carvings have been found depicting musical instruments and musicians, dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries ^[1]. Nigeria has also produced some of the most popular music in the world and has been called "the heart of African music" ^[2], playing an important role in the development of West African highlife and palm-wine music, fusing native rhythms with techniques imported from the Congo, Cuba and elsewhere. Highlife was an important foundation for the development of several popular styles unique to Nigeria, like apala, fuji, juju and Yo-pop. Later still, Nigerian musicians created their own styles of United States hip hop and Jamaican reggae. Out of all the African countries, Nigeria has some of the most advanced recording studio technology and commercial opportunities for its performers ^[3], and the country's musical output has achieved great international acclaim.

Polyrhythms, in which two or more separate beats are played simultaneously, are a part of much of traditional African music ^[4], including in Nigeria. Other African rhythmic techniques include rhythmic displacement, in which "instead of accentuating the accepted strong beats, one accentuates the weak beats" and the related characteristic syncopation, which occurs "when two beats are split into three pulses of which the second is the longer note value, while the first and third note values surrounding it are half of the second" ^[5]. Nigerian music also utilizes ostinato rhythms, in which a rhythmic pattern is repeated, and variable metres which change the time signature of a piece of music.

Folk music

Over four hundred ethnic groups are native to Nigeria, and many more have immigrated there in recent years. Traditional music from Nigeria is almost always functional; that is, performed to mark a ritual such as a wedding or funeral, and not for pure entertainment or artistic enjoyment. Though some Nigerians, especially children and the elderly, play instruments for their own amusement, solo performance is otherwise rare. Music is closely linked to agriculture, and there are restrictions on, for example, which instruments can be played during different parts of the growing season. Work songs are a common feature of traditional Nigerian music. They help to keep the rhythm of workers in fields, river canoes and other fields. Women use complex rhythms in housekeeping tasks, such as pounding yams to highly ornamented music. In the northern regions, farmers work together on each others' farms and the host is expected to supply musicians for his neighbors.

Musicians in Nigeria are not generally professional, though there are exceptions. The northern Muslims and eastern Adamawa, for example, have groups of specialized musicians. The issue of musical composition is also highly variable. The Hwana, for example, believe that all songs are taught by the peoples' ancestors, while the Tiv give credit to named composers for almost all songs, and the Efik name individual composers only for secular songs. In many parts of Nigeria, musicians are considered allowed to say things in music which would otherwise be perceived as offensive.

The most common format for music in Nigeria is a call-and-response choir, in which a lead singer and a chorus interchange verses, sometimes accompanied by instruments which either shadow the lead text or repeat and ostinato vocal phrase. The southern area features complex rhythms and solo players using melody instruments, while the north more typically features polyphonic wind ensembles. The most extreme north region uses essentially monodic music with an emphasis on drums, and is in general more influenced by Islamic music.

Epic poetry is found in parts of Nigeria, and its performance is always viewed as musical in nature. Blind itinerant performers, sometimes accompanying themselves with a string instrument, are known for reciting long poems of unorthodox Islam among the Kanuri and Hausa. These and other related traditions may be descended from similar Maghrebian and European traditions. The Ozidi saga, found in the Niger Delta, is a well-known epic which takes seven days to perform and utilizes a chorus, a narrator, and percussion, mime and dance.

Hausa

The Hausa of the north are known for complexly percussive music and the one-stringed goje fiddle, as well as a praise song vocal tradition. Music is used to celebrate births, marriages, circumcisions and other important life events ^[6]. Hausa ceremonial music (rokon fada) is well-known in the area, and dominated by families of praise-singers, most famously including Narambad ^[7]. The Hausa play percussion instruments like tambura drum and the royal, elongated kakakai trumpet ^[8], which was "originally used by the Songhai cavalry amd was taken by the rising Hausa states as a symbol of military power" ^[9].

The Hausa bòòríí cult is especially well-known outside of the country, and has been brought as far north as Tripoli, Libya by trans-Saharan trade. The bòòríí cult features trance music, played by calabash, lute or fiddle. During ceremonies, women and other marginalized groups fall into trances and perform odd behaviors, such as mimicking a pig or sexual behavior. These persons are said to be possessed by a character, each with its own litany (kírààrì). There are similar trance cults (the so-called "mermaid cults") found in the Niger Delta region.

Igbo

The Igbo people live in the southeast of Nigeria, and play a wide variety of folk instruments. They are known for adopting foreign styles quite easily, and were an important part of Nigerian highlife ^[11]. The most widespread is the thirteen-stringed zither called an obo. There are also slit drums, xylophones, flutes, lyres and lutes, and more recently imported European brass instruments.

Courtly music is played among the more traditional Igbo, who keep to their royal traditions. The ufie (slit drum) is used to wake the chief and communicate mealtimes and other important information to him. Bell and drum ensembles are used to announce when the chief departs and returns to his village ^[12].

Yoruba

The Yoruba have an extremely advanced drumming tradition, especially using the dundun hourglass tension drums. Ensembles using the dundun play a type of music that is also called dundun ^[13]. These ensembles consist of various sizes of tension drums along with kettledrums (gudugudu). The leader of a dundun ensemble is the iyalu who uses the drum to "talk" by imitating the tonality of Yoruban ^[14]. Much of Yoruban music is spiritual in nature, and is devoted to the Orisas of Yoruba mythology.

Yoruban music has become the most important component of modern Nigerian popular music, as a result of its early influence from European, Islamic and Brazilian forms. These influences stemmed from the importation of brass instruments, sheet music, Islamic percussion and styles brought by Brazilian merchants ^[15]. In Nigeria's largest city, Lagos, these multicultural traditions were brought together and became the root of Nigerian popular music.

Theatrical music

Nigerian theater makes extensive use of music. Often, this is simply traditional music used in a theatrical production without adaptation. There are also, however, distinct styles of music for Nigerian opera. Here, music is used to convey an impression of the action onstage to the audience. Music is also used in literary drama, though musical accompaniment is more sparingly used than in opera. Again, musical communicates the mood or tone of events to the audience. An example is J. P. Dark's Ozidi, a play about murder and revenge, featuring both human and non-human actors. Each character in the play has a theme song which accompanies battles in which the character is involved.

Traditional Nigerian theater includes puppet shows in Borno and among the Ogoni and Tiv, and the ancient Yoruba Aláàrìnjó tradition, which may be descended from the Egúngún masquerade. With the influx of road-building colonialists, these theater groups spread across the country and their productions grew ever more elaborate. They now frequently use European instruments, film extracts and recorded music.

Children's music

Children in Nigeria have many of their own traditions, usually singing games. These are most often call-and-response type songs, using archaic language. There are other songs, such as among the Tarok people, that are sexually explicit and obscene, and are only performed far away from the home. Children also use instruments like unpitched raft-zithers (made from cornstalks) and drums made from tin cans, a pipe made from a pawpaw stem and a Jew's harp made from a sorghum stalk. Among the Hausa, children play a unique instrument in which they beat rhythms on the inflated stomach of a live, irritated pufferfish.

Traditional instruments

Though percussion instruments are the most omnipresent, Nigeria's traditional music utilizes a number of diverse instruments. Many, like the xylophone, are an integral part of music across West Africa, while others are imports from the Muslims of the Maghreb, or southern or eastern Africa, and yet more are recently brought from Europe or the Americas. Brass instruments and woodwinds were early imports that played a vital role in the development of Nigerian music, while the later importation of electric guitars spurred the popularization of juju music.

Xylophone

The xylophone is a tuned idiophone, common throughout Africa. In Nigeria, they are most common in the southern part of the country, and are of the Central African model. Several musicians sometimes play one xylophone simultaneously. They are usually made of loose wood placed across banana logs. Pit- and box-resonated xylophones are also found.

Percussion

Ensembles of clay pots beaten with a soft pad are common; they are sometimes filled with water. Though normally tuned, untuned examples are sometimes used to make a bass rhythm. Hollow logs split lengthways, with resonator holes at the end of the slit, are also used. They used to be used for communication over great distances.

Various bells are a common part of royal regalia, and were used in secret societies. They are mostly made of iron, or bronze in Islamic orchestras of the north. Struck gourds placed on a cloth and struck with sticks are a part of women's music, as well as the bòòríí cult dances. Sometimes, especially in the north, gourds are placed upside-down in water, with the pitch adjusted by the amount of air underneath it. In the southwest, a number of tuned gourds are played while floating in a trough.

Scrapers are common throughout the south. One of the most common type is a notched stick, played by dragging a shell across the stick at various speeds. It is used both as a women's court instrument and by children to produce insults aimed at others. Among the Yoruba, an iron rod may be used as a replacement for a stick. Rattles made of gourds containing seeds or stones are common, as are net-rattles, in which a string network of beads or shells encloses a gourd. It is played mostly in ritual or religious context, and mostly by women.

Drums of many kinds are perhaps the most common type of percussion instrument in Nigeria. They are traditionally made from a single piece of wood, or spherical calabashes, but have more recently been made from oil drums. The hourglass drum is the most common shape, though there are also double-headed barrel drums, single-headed drums and conical drums. Frame drums are also found in Nigeria, but may be an importation from Brazil.

String instruments

The bow is found in Nigeria; it is a mouth-resonated cord either plucked or struck. It is most common in the central part of the country, and is associated with agricultural songs, or songs expression social concerns. Cereal-stalks bound together and strings supported by two bridges are used to make a kind of raft-zither, played with the thumbs, typically for solo entertainment. The arched harp is found in the eastern part of the country, especially among the Tarok. It usually has five or six strings and pentatonic tuning. A bowl-resonated spike-fiddle with a lizard skin table is used in the northern region; it is an import from North Africa, and is similar to Central Asian and Ethiopian models. The Hausa and Kanuri peoples play a variety of spike-lutes.

Other instruments

A variety of brass and woodwind instruments are also found in Nigeria. These include long trumpets, frequently made of aluminum and played in pairs or ensembles of up to six, and are often accompanied by a shawm. Wooden trumpets, gourd trumpets, end-blown flutes, cruciform whistles, transverse clarinets and various kinds of horns are also found.

Popular music

Many African countries have seen turbulence and violence during the transition from a diverse region of folk cultures to a modern nation-state; Nigeria has more difficulty than most African countries in forging a popular cultural identity from the diverse peoples of the countryside ^[16]. From its beginnings in the streets of Lagos, popular music in Nigeria has long been an integral part of the field of African pop, bringing in influences and instruments from many ethnic groups, most prominently including the Yoruba.

The earliest styles of Nigerian popular music were palm-wine music and highlife, which spread in the 1920s among Nigeria and nearby countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ghana. In Nigeria, palm-wine became the primary basis for juju, a genre that dominated popular music for many years. During this time, a few other styles, like apala, derived from traditional Yoruban music, also found a more limited audience. By the 1960s, Cuban, American and other styles of imported music were finding a large fanbase, and musicians began to incorporate these influences into juju. The result was a profusion of new styles in the last few decades of the 20th century, including waka music, Yo-pop and Afrobeat.

Palmwine and the invention of juju

By the beginning of the 20th century, Yoruban music had incorporated brass instruments, written notation, Islamic percussion and new Brazilian techniques, resulting in the Lagos-born palm-wine style. The term palm-wine is also used to describe related genres in Sierra Leone and Ghana ^[17]; these varieties are more well-known than Nigerian palm-wine. However, palm-wine originally referred to a diverse set of styles played with string instruments (especially guitars or banjos) with shakers and hand drums accompanying ^[18]. It was an urban style, frequently played in bars to accompany drinking (hence the name, which comes from the alcoholic palm wine beverage).

In the 1920s, the first stars of palm-wine had emerged, most famously including Baba Tunde King. King probably coined the word juju, a style of music he helped create, in reference to the sound of a Brazilian tambourine or perhaps to the term's use as an expression of disdain by the colonial leaders (any native tradition was apt to be dismissed as mere juju nonsense) ^[19]. By the early 1930s, recording had begun by British record labels like His Masters Voice, and more celebrities emerged, including Ojoge Daniel, Tunde Nightingale and Speedy Araba; these people, along with Tunde King, "established the core repertoire that would shape" a style of pop music ^[20]. This early pop music was called juju, and has remained one of the most popular genres in Nigeria throughout the 20th century.

Apala

Apala is a style of vocal and percussive music Muslim Yoruba music. It emerged in the late 1930s, used to rouse worshippers after the fasting of Ramadan ^[21]. Under the influence of popular Afro-Cuban percussion, apala grew more polished and found a large audience