| Abstract: | When the late Nigerian Afro-beat proponent, Fela Anikulapo Kuti (formerly known as Fela Ransome-Kuti) returned from a tour of the United States of America in 1970, his music witnessed a lot of transformation. First, he discarded his erstwhile jazz-highlife style and came up with a new style he christened 'Afro-beat', a mixture of American jazz and Yoruba folk music. Secondly, the content of his vocal music changed tremendously from abstract themes to day-to-day happenings among the common people in Nigeria. However, the protracted military rule in Nigeria, coupled with the large-scale embezzlement and looting of the nation's treasury (which undermined the democratic processes), as well as the promotion of large-scale violence by the nation's military junta, provided a new theme for Fela's vocal music from the mid-1970s. Thus the stage was set for a new phenomenon among Nigerian popular music, known as Yabis music. Yabis, the noun of the pidgin English word 'yab' (make fun of a person or thing), became a site for political engagement, through which those who governed through coercion were ridiculed and their bad policies subjected to derision in several lyrics of many Nigerian popular musicians who later joined Fela in the 1980s and after. This paper examines the role and impact of Yabis music on the Nigerian music scene, as well as its political and sociocultural milieu. Bibliogr., sum. [Journal abstract] |
AfricaBib 
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Leiden University catalogue
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