Indigenous African Popular Music, Volume 1

This volume explores the nature, philosophies and genres of indigenous African popular music, focusing on how indigenous African popular music artistes are seen as prophets and philosophers, and how indigenous African popular music depicts the world. Indigenous African popular music has long been under-appreciated in communication scholarship. However, understanding the nature and philosophies of indigenous African popular music reveals an untapped diversity which can only be unraveled by knowledge of the myriad cultural backgrounds from which its genres originate. Indigenous African popular musicians have become repositories of indigenous cultural traditions and cosmologies. With a particular focus on scholarship from Nigeria, Zimbabwe and South Africa, this volume explores the work of these pioneering artists and their protégés who are resiliently sustaining, recreating and popularising indigenous popular music in their respective African communities, and at the same time propagating the communal views about African philosophies and the temporal and spiritual worlds in which they exist.

¿Abiodun Salawu is Professor of Journalism, Communication and Media Studies, and Director of Indigenous Language Media in Africa, at the North-West University, South Africa. His major areas of research include indigenous language media, development communication, critical studies and new media.

Israel A. Fadipe is postdoctoral fellow in Indigenous Language Media in Africa at the Faculty of Humanities, North-West University, South Africa. He specialises in communication, cultural and gender studies, and has published articles and chapters in both local and international journals.