THE STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE NAIJA HIP-HOP MUSIC ON THE GENERAL WELL-BEING OF THE NIGERIAN YOUTHS

INTRODUCTION: Music is a common phenomenon that is found among the different cultures of the world and its importance and values cannot be over emphasised. Music is an age long art that has impacted greatly on humanity in so many ways beyond what words could describe. Experiences evident in my undergraduate training reveal that every culture of the world has one form of music or the other to serve man’s needs. That man is blessed with the innate ability to create music to enliven the moods of his environment and to satisfy his other wants and needs. Again, my training reveals that throughout history, different cultures of the world create and apply music for several reasons. But there is a common unifying factor that people over the ages create music that satisfy and/or appeal to their senses, feelings, emotions, imaginations and intellects. Africans just like other cultures of the world have also demonstrated that music is not just a tool to achieve an end but a living phenomenon whose characteristic features have not only helped in sharping the feelings, emotions, social, religious, economic and the political lives of the people and cultures but, have influenced the way the they perceive life.

Music as a work of art has one way or the other undergone one form of change or the other. Evidences in the works of Miller (1973), Grout (1981), Ardley (1986), Burkholder et al (2014) and other scholars have shown that from the ancient times, different categories of music have evolved. Their accounts revealed further that throughout history, different cultures of the world have created different music to cater for both their religious and social lives. They further reveal that the social movement that gave rise to the humanistic ideology of the renaissance era also contributed to the development of music. Burkholder et al (2014) for example aver that the invention of technology during the renaissance era have contributed greatly to the creation of newer musical styles and improvement and the development of other ones. With the advancement of technology and the invention of electronic music, music developed beyond the concert halls and the courts of the nobles to the living rooms of the common people. With the advent of television and radio, many homes who could not afford the luxury of going to the opera houses, the courts of the nobles or other concert halls could now listen to good music.

Popular music, one of the brands of music popularised by the electronic media gained so much attention of people. It was a form of music intended for wider appeal. Ardley (1986:1) states that one of the major reasons why popular music gained wider appeal is that unlike the classical music, popular music pieces are shorter in length, the music and the words of popular music get across the audience and the performance also include the listeners. He added that popular music possesses these special groove and drive that make the listening and dancing more enjoyable (Ardley, 1986: 107). Several styles of popular music such as jazz, ragtime, dancehall, reggae, salsa, blues, soul, rock, hip-hop and others have evolved since the 1900. Each of these styles has its own unique feature that catch the fancy of their audiences.

One of the popular music styles that the study in interested in is the hip-hop music. Hip-hop is a brand of popular music that originated from Bronx in New York. It is a brand of music that started off as some sort of movement where the poor and the marginalised youths on the streets of Bronx used their music to report the life situations in their hoods and how the government had abandoned them. Scholars reported that the music gained so much acceptance among youths across the world who subsequently adopted the musical style as medium of entertainment and social commentary. In Nigeria, hip-hop music gained so much acceptance among the young people living in the ghettos and slums. Beyond using the music to enliven and entertain themselves, they used the music to report their degenerated life experiences as well. Similarly, hip-hop music grew beyond the hoods and creeped into the urban space and gained wider subject matters. According to Dr Tunji Dada in a symposium tilted, ‘The New Heritage: ‘The appropriation and reconstruction of Popular music in Nigeria’ organised by Dr Albert Oikelome at the Mountain Top University on the 20th of May, 2022 stated that from the practise of hip-hop music in Nigeria, a new brand of hip-hop he referred to as Naija hip-hop. According to him, the Naija hip-hop is the result of the enculturation or fusion of language, dialects, local and traditional music features and dance by the younger generations to the original hip-hop style they inherited in order to make the music more appealing among the Nigerian people. Dr Tunji added that the Naija hip-hop also gain international acceptance because of their unique features that are exclusively, Nigerian. Today, Naija hip-hop is one of the arts that is exported from Nigeria to other parts of the world.

This research is interested in the study of the Naija hip-hop because of its influence on the Nigerian youths. In spite of the too many local and international honours and economy gains of hip-hop music to the Nigerian people and government, this study finds out that the Naija hip-hop music has negatively influenced the Nigerian youths. A close study of the musical and video contents of the Naija hip-hop music reveals contents that are fast influencing the youths in such a way that are not too healthy to their general well-being of the youths, the cultural and moral structure of the Nigerian society. The public display of nudity, sex, flamboyant and extravagant life styles, the abuse of drugs and carefree and reckless living are all visual contents that have systematically altered the way young people perceive or view life. Many have been deceived by the fake life styles their musical icons display on the social media and as a result, many lives have been ruined.

This study is hinged on the ancient Greek philosophy, the Doctrine of Ethos that believes that what people listen to or see has a way of affecting their behaviour or character. This study argues that the constant listening and/or the visualisation of contents that induce erotic feelings, hype the use of drugs, project money as the ultimate life goal and promote life styles that contravene moral and cultural values would alter the world view of the young people. It is on this note that this study wants to inquire to what extent the Naija hip-hop music has influenced the Nigerian young people and as well as suggests possible way out to this menace can be curbed. This study would be limited to selected parts of Lagos and Ogun States, respectively.