Youth and linguistic stylization in Naija Afro Hip Hop

Abstract

Naija Afro Hip hop is Nigeria’s unique Hip Hop music and, arguably, one of Africa’s most dominant contemporary youth-based popular music genres. This youthful music brand has artfully exploited the complex and exciting technological revolution of its time to evolve a formidable industry and establish an intriguing youth sub-culture that has a serious impact on the socio-political and economic landscape of Nigeria. One of the key factors that accounts for the peculiarity, vibrancy and ambience of in?uence of this phenomenal music brand across Africa is the ingenious manner in which language is exploited, manipulated and deployed in the genre. Informed by the theoretical paradigm of postcolonialism, this paper identi?es, contextualizes and critically analyzes instances of language creativity in select pieces of music from artists in the industry. The paper sees language use in the genre as a lyrical strategy of subjectivity and a counter hegemonic instrument at different sociopolitical and cultural levels.