Abstract
Existing studies have shown the dialectics of protest and resistance embedded in Nigeria's hip-hop culture. Contributing to the growing body of research hereon, this study examines the thematic preoccupations of five purposively selected songs by four Nigerian hip-hop artistes: Eedris Turayo Abdulkareem Ajenifuja (Eedris Abdulkareem), Folarin Falana (Falz), Olanrewaju Abdul-Ganiu Fasasi (Sound Sultan), and Innocent Idibia (Tuface). It scrutinises the historiography involved as well as the artistes’ stylisation of power and resistance, drawing analytical insights from Foucault's theory of power and knowledge. The selected artistes are of key relevance because their songs demonstrate how young Nigerians are critically responding to political marginalisation and oppression, particularly since the return to democracy in 1999. The study analyses how these artistes use hip-hop culture to engage with the establishment and demand social justice from political elites, following four thematic frames: power abuses and mass poverty; political/electoral violence; looting and the compromised legal system; and brain-drain (japa) syndrome. This article increases understanding, as such, of how hip-hop is weaponised to resist malfeasance and oppression.
Introduction
This article examines the instructive instantiation of hip-hop culture in the cultivation of sociopolitical angst. Specifically, it interrogates youths’ deployment of that culture in registering their dissent towards Nigeria's societal structure and political class. Making up a high percentage of the functional and productive population (Mbachu and Alake, 2016), yet massively side-lined by its political elites, Nigerian youths have been denied participation in the country's governance processes. Despite the impediments put in place by the establishment to deny them active participation in decision-making and the political development of their country, Nigerian youths have continued to ensure that their voices are heard concerning these key matters. Alongside the use of social media (Okpalaeke and Aboh, 2022), hip-hop culture is among the most popular platforms deployed in structuring and instrumentalising their angst about misgovernance.
Onanuga (2021) argues that Nigerian artistes use the genre as an alternative medium to express their displeasure with the repressive and hegemonic system of governance adopted by the ruling class. Elaborating on this thought, Inyabri posits that these artistes “speak to the general failure of the state and the collective misery of the people” (2022: 364). Nigerian hip-hop artistes, as such, see in the progressive character of hip-hop culture – with its illocutionary force – the opportunity to deconstruct Nigeria's political hegemony – evidenced in its marginalisation of the mass majority – as intersecting with the people's desire to reclaim power from their oppressors.
This study demonstrates how five purposively selected songs by four Nigerian hip-hop artistes – Eedris Turayo Abdulkareem Ajenifuja (Eedris Abdulkareem), Folarin Falana (Falz), Olanrewaju Abdul-Ganiu Fasasi (Sound Sultan), and Innocent Idibia (Tuface) – extend their art beyond mere entertainment and into the realm of resistance to political elites’ abuse of power. They demand herewith social justice, good governance, and better representation. Events are situated within the time period between 1999 and 2019. Historically, these years marked a watershed in Nigerian youths’ responses to malfeasance. Inyabri describes it as an era of “political consciousness” in which “all over the world hip-hop [became] known for its political content,” stressing that hip-hop in Africa “has been a proven committed art” (2022: 368–369). Their lyrics help unravel the tribulations of the Nigerian people in seeking to “provide an account of the lack of justice created by a situation of marginalization, oppression or exclusion” (Lara, 1998: 16). While Lara (1998) is concerned about the exclusion of women owing to their gender, her thesis is also applicable here in that any form of marginalisation has the capacity to bring about oppression and silencing. In undertaking an interpretive, historiographic analysis of the five selected “resistance songs,” Turner's (2021: 28) view that the construction of resistance in musical performance is instantiated by political conditions or by the performer's perception of such circumstances is amplified. This presupposes, then, that we can draw a parallel between the songs’ themes and the sociopolitical situation in contemporary Nigeria.
Nigerian Youths’ Political Engagement Before 1999
Long before Nigeria's return to civilian rule in 1999, Fela Anikulapo Kuti and his legendary Afrobeat would attract sustained global recognition. Fela was particularly active in calling out repressive both military and civilian regimes (Lalwani, 2020; Olaniyan, 2004). Between 1963, when he returned to Nigeria, and 1997, when he died, Fela was very consistent – despite state tyranny – in his questioning of respective military governments’ brutality, human rights abuses, and corruption. 1 Oikelome writes that in the 1970s, Fela's music was at its apogee, stressing that “at this time, his ideological stance had taken shape and become sufficiently concretised for him to successfully fuse an equally new vision with political commitment” (2009: 62). Fela was by no means unfamiliar with Nigeria's political terrain; at a point, he was an active politician. His party, Movement of the People, was denied registration in 1977 by the Federal Election Commission. His song, “Army Arrangement,” narrates his conviction that there is no way the Nigerian government can conduct credible elections. Fela's most remarkable song was “Zombie,” wherein he regarded soldiers as possessing “no free will and follow[ing] orders without hesitations [or without moral consciousness]” (Olanrewaju, 2018).
One might have thought that Fela's death on 2 August 1997 would mark an end to Nigerian artistes employing music to resist exploitive systems. Interestingly, however, the turn of the new millennium saw another group of young Nigerian musicians emerge who would take up the baton of social activism via their use of hip-hop culture. Some of them have appropriated Fela's style in their artistic renditions. Musicians such as Abdulkareem, African China, Burna Boy, 2 Falz, Fire Boy, Sound Sultan, Tuface, and others have towed Fela's line despite employing a different musical genre – hip-hop – to address social ills and demand good governance from the Nigerian state.
The history of youth involvement in Nigeria's political transition goes as far back as the colonial period. The Nigerian Youth Movement (1934–1951) was a force to be reckoned with during that era. The body challenged obnoxious colonial policies that sought to denigrate the Nigerian people. “Nigeria's political history would be incomplete without the indelible records of youths’ participation. The Pre-Independence efforts of Nigerian youths contributed significantly to the achievement of independence in Nigeria” (Afolayan, n.d.). Even after independence, Nigerian youths continued to ensure that sociopolitical and economic progress did not falter. Although such efforts were not devoid of difficulties, as exemplified in the fights that occurred among leaders from different ethnic groups (Coleman, 1958), mass mobilisation, editorial writing, convening conferences, and forming student unions were among the avenues used to resist malfeasance. Since the return to democracy in 1999, however, there has been a paradigm shift; with such activism via music previously a niche affair, these days a large number of Nigerian youths use hip-hop to engage with pressing issues. Inyabri asserts that this increasingly popular approach “encapsulates the anxieties and cravings of these youths to move beyond the bad condition that is palpable around them and which seems to be consuming their parents” (2022: 359). It is instructive to mention, nevertheless, that prior to the return to democracy, there were still several young Nigerians such as Isaac Black, Ras Kimono, Mandators, Peter-side Ottong, Maxwell Udoh, and others who used their songs to inspire resistance against the despotic military incumbents of the time.
With renewed civilian rule, Nigerians – and especially the young among them – envisaged a new chapter in the country's history opening up. However, “all that promise and self-confidence soon burst” (Inyabri, 2022: 358) as myriad issues – ranging from human rights abuses (Adeakin, 2016), corruption, political thuggery, and assassinations (Agba and Coker, 2010) to ethnic-militia operations (Abdulazeez, 2013) and increases in the cost of living (Jaiyeola, 2020) – dashed people's hopes. Not possessing the conventional political platform to seek redress of the social ills overwhelming the country, youths have begun to ask pertinent questions about its governance through the medium of hip-hop.
(Un)making of Youths in Post-1999 Nigeria
Youths have remained a vital part of Nigeria's electoral processes. 3 They have served in various instances as foot soldiers and canvassers of votes for party flagbearers. Despite such key roles, youths have been tactically denied participation in the governance of their country. Even when political appointments are made, they have regularly been side-lined. A cursory survey of ministerial appointments will readily show a recycling practice whereby those who have been in power since the overthrow of the Second Republic (1979–1983) are overwhelmingly the same ones still ruling today.
For the purpose of clarity, a “youth” is an individual, male or female, between the ages of 15 and 34 – as proven to be the most politically active social strata (Anosike, n.d.). This categorisation differs, however, according to scholarly traditions and orientations. Considered an active segment of Nigerian society, political parties and their representatives engage youth in more energy-demanding duties; when victory is secured at the polls, though, little to nothing is done to keep them in profitable endeavours. They have been used for electoral violence and thuggery. This productive and energetic demographic is, as such, only remembered when the politicians have “work” for them to do. The idea of “godfatherism” has further rendered these individuals vulnerable (Okafor, 2017), often the case since 1999 across Nigeria's social landscape.
There has been performative inclusion: the “Not Too Young to Run” law, for instance, seeks to increase youth participation in the political process. However, the weaponisation of poverty, money politics, and the glorification of party structures above competence have ensured that young people are unable to make significant inroads into the establishment. A careful analysis of their involvement in the Nigerian political space since 1999 indicates that they have been denied active participation therein by those in power. In most cases, the few who have actively taken part in politics only managed a brief stay, as they were soon pushed aside to accommodate the old guard.
The present Senate President, Mr. Godswill Akpabio, has been in power since 2011; he previously served as the governor of Akwa Ibom State, where he reigned for eight years. Coming to terms with this weakness, Nigerian youths are beginning to question this “sit-tight syndrome” among these stalwarts. The struggle for inclusion in the politics of their country is not entirely new. However, it started to garner more momentum from 2017, especially when Emmanuel Macron (thirty-nine years old) emerged as France's president, among other situations where younger people gained access to power in their respective countries. The central argument advanced here is “that if they are qualified to vote, they should be qualified to be voted for” (Babalobi, 2018). During President Olusegun Obasanjo's (1999–2007) administration, he could only manage a handful of the youthful population in his National Executive Cabinet. As federal ministers under him, Chukwuemeka Chikelu (thirty-five years old, Minister of Information and National Orientation) and Frank Nweke Jr. (thirty-seven years old, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Special Duties) were among the few young people fortunate enough to earn a place in the corridors of power during the first phase of Nigeria's Fourth Republic. Moreover, between 1999 and 2003, Chikelu had earlier served as Member of the House of Representatives for the Anaocha/Njikoka/Dunukofia Constituency of Anambra State.
While more statistics on various political offices held by youths between 1999 and 2019 are yet to emerge, available accounts suggest that this demographic has by and large been made mere political spectators. Their involvement in political decision-making has continued to dwindle. Since 1999, the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Social Development – assigned with the responsibility of addressing these individuals’ socio-economic, political, and general welfare – has seen those ranging in age between forty-one and sixty-three years old as its head. Included here are: Abdulragman Gimba (52), Bala Bawaka’Oje (nil), Colonel Musa Mohammed (48), Damishi Sango (49), Dr Saidu Sambawa (46), Engr. Ishaya Mark Aku (63), Sani Ndunasa (41), and Steven Ibn Akiga (60). Others are: Alhaji Yusuf Suleiman (48), Alhaji Ibrahim Isa Bio (53), Bolaji Abdullahi (42), Barrister Solomon C. Dalung (50), Sunday Dare (53), Professor Toaheed Adedoja (59), and Tamuno Danagogo (44).
The above list shows the extent to which Nigerian youths have been tactically alienated from domestic political activity since the return to civilian rule. Such marginalisation trickles down from the national to local level. Most youth have expressed their disenchantment with their continued marginalisation, the failure of the older leadership to stimulate national development, as well as the latter's inability to ensure a stable society. These shortcomings have forced some to react through turning to hip-hop culture in the attempt to participate in political discourse as well as demand good governance and social justice.
Youth, Politics, and Hip-Hop Culture
A number of scholars have explored the relationship between hip-hop culture, youth activism, and political developments or consciousness. Clark studied, for instance, hip-hop's multi-dimensional functionality among African youths in contemporary times, arguing that although it “emerged in the Bronx borough of New York City in the 1970s” (2018: 7), its overwhelming influence in Africa stretches beyond the entertainment industry, as a result of being used as one of the main avenues for engaging in political discourse. Clark's submission coheres with that of Casco (2012), namely that hip-hop culture is increasingly becoming a veritable agent of engaging the establishment in East Africa. Focusing on Tanzania, Casco argues that its youth rely on this genre as a way to demand better governance in their country.
Shonekan (2011) accounted, meanwhile, for the changing dynamics of hip-hop among Nigerian youth and their African-American counterparts in their quest to not only connect through lyrical ideation; they have also oriented their musical performances towards demanding social justice. This aligns with Omoniyi's (2009) view that youth in Africa and North America employ hip-hop as a means of articulating their political ideology about their respective countries. Omoniyi's summation, in turn, chimes with that of Inyabri, Mensah and Ochagu (2022): they posit that hip-hop has become a cultural site for youth self-expression, entertainment, and empowerment. Buttressing this demographic's growing political consciousness, Clark averred that “hip-hop artists [in Africa] are among the voices calling for change, challenging the status quo and speaking on social issues. Their music offers representations of local, social and political conditions, representations that often take the form of protest music” (2018: 71). Hip-hop lyrics “are [thus] crucial because they constitute stories about ourselves” (Guerra, 2020:15), helping enhance how we understand and relate to the world around us.
Akingbe and Onanuga (2018) concerned themselves with Nigerian youths’ efforts at domesticating or nationalising hip-hop culture by constantly reaffirming their nationalistic spirit, defending their country against international disparagement. Onanuga (2020) examined, furthermore, how different youths are making efforts to localise hip-hop culture in their countries while staying connected to the global space. He argued that this explains why in Nigeria the genre has become a powerful tool to address societal ills.
Osiebe (2019) x-rayed how hip-hop is used as a vector for electoral consciousness in democratic Nigeria, noting there are two sides to understanding how its artistes engage in political discourse here. One, they use their songs to rebuke those in power, speaking as the representatives of the oppressed. Two, some hip-hop artistes pitch tent with the political class, thereby allowing their songs to be fashioned as electioneering tools in favour of those running for office. Also, scholars have argued that there is a strong link between hip-hop culture and consciousness – sociocultural, sociopolitical, and identity formation – among youth more generally (Adedeji, 2013; Khan, 2009).
On the Asiatic front, Khan (2009) investigated the impact of hip-hop on Chinese youth. Even though the author's essay reflects more of the sociocultural dimension to this, it confirms the view that hip-hop has continued to have far-reaching effects on this demographic in different parts of the world. Mensah and Inyabri clarified how “young people's constant engagement with their environment has brought social change and transformation which are components of globalization” (2016: 11). Hip-hop is more like a global common, making impactful differences across climes and races. Nair (2017) explained how youths in India adopt the genre as a tool of sociopolitical struggle. Through hip-hop, they are becoming increasingly political in fearlessly questioning the continuing marginalisation of themselves and their peers in the general scheme of things in their country.
From the foregoing, it can be deduced that a range of scholars have researched the link between hip-hop culture and youth involvement in politics. This study contributes to the growing literature hereon by focusing on how, since the beginning of Nigeria's return to democratic rule on 29 May 1999, its musicians have continued to seek not only social and political representation but also justice. That in the face of widespread electoral irregularities, corruption, human rights abuses, insecurity, and hunger.
Conceptual Framework
Foucault's (1990) conceptualisation of “power” as a kind of networked interplay of force and resistance that is present in all sociodiscursive encounters is considered germane for this study. The kernel of his theory is that power relationally illustrates how certain forms of knowledge are suppressed while others are produced (Rabinow, 1991). In the Foucauldian view, power is the capacity of an agent to impose their own wish over the will of the defenceless, or the ability to force them to do things that they do not want to do. Power is more of a strategy than the possession of a particular individual or group (Hewett, 2004; Medina, 2011). This suggests that power does not exist in vacuum, only in relation to another person or other people. As Foucault puts it in Power and Knowledge: Power must be analyzed as something which circulates, or as something which only functions in the form of a chain […] power is employed and exercised through a netlike organization […] individuals are the vehicles of power, not its points of application. (1990: 98)
According to McNay (1994: 2), Foucault's interest is not in the expression of power in its most centralised and institutionalised forms, such as class relations. Rather, the French thinker is concerned with examining how relations of disparity and subjugation are constructed and sustained in elusive, diffuse ways via seemingly humane and freely adopted social practices. Foucault's discourse engages with the fundamental structures of power and clarifies that they are accounted for in how rules and regulations are even made. Power – and dominance – is also established via modes of knowledge production, their acceptance, and their changing dynamics over time. He foregrounds here how history is a disconnected spectrum of diverse and shifting knowledge forms and practices. Rabinow (1991) writes that Foucault's overall idea is that power and knowledge are not to be seen as autonomous units but intimately related, indicating that knowledge is always an exercise of power and power is always a function of knowledge. This is not to suggest, however, that knowledge and power are synonymous. It rather implies a relationship existing indicative of how certain forms of knowledge and related practices are suppressed to establish other substitute versions. There is no society without power, and therefore no one can live outside the relationships it inhabits.
Foucault's exploration of these matters stresses the idea that the individual is not powerless against groups or social institutions. Power is not confined to a particular domain; it is scattered throughout society. In this way, one can observe how each human interaction is capable of producing resistance. Foucault (2002) avers that where there is power, there is resistance; yet – or rather, consequently – this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power. This suggests that power is often seen as an unstable element, an ideological construct, that can always be challenged; as a result, power relations must be permanently maintained and acknowledged. According to Mills, this type of power has two main features: (a) power is a system, a network of relations involving the whole society, rather than a relation between the oppressed and the oppressor; (b) individuals are not just the objects of power, but they are the locus where power and the resistance to it are exerted. (2003: 3)
Methodology
Data for this study were gathered through the purposive sampling of four hip-hop artistes: namely, Eedris Turayo Abdulkareem Ajenifuja (Eedris Abdulkareem), Folarin Falana (Falz), Olanrewaju Abdul-Ganiu Fasasi (Sound Sultan), and Innocent Idibia (Tuface). These four were preferred to other possible candidates for the following reasons. First, the five purposively selected songs – Abdulkareem's “Nigeria Jaga Jaga” (2002), Falz's “This Is Nigeria” (2018), Sultan's “Mathematics” (2009), as well as Tuface's “For Instance” (2006) and “E Be Like Say” (2011) – are all ones challenging the social ills confronting Nigeria at different phases of its democratic evolution. Second, they were released into the public domain at critical moments, especially in the build-up to respective political campaigns and elections. Third, Abdulkareem (twenty-eight years old), Falz (twenty-seven), Sultan (twenty-four), and Tuface (thirty-four) 4 were all less than thirty-five years of age at the time they released their various songs.
Data were translated from Nigerian Pidgin and Indigenous languages into English and analysed following a descriptive methodology. This allowed for detailed analysis of the core contents of the songs and highlighted artistes’ perspectives about power relations and knowledge production in Nigerian society, and how hip-hop enables resistance. In the descriptive analysis, reference is made (through the use of footnotes) to other artistes’ songs similarly addressing Nigeria's sociopolitical malaise. This use of footnotes helped to resolve the problem of sampling only four hip-hop artistes out of the plethora of possible candidates here as well as to avoid repetition. As part of a historiographical discourse study, the combination of content analysis and “insider-outsider” methods provides key background information on the prevailing themes featuring in the lyrics of the selected artistes and their compatriots, providing insight into contemporary Nigeria at the time of release.
Results and Data Analysis
Nigeria's return to democracy in 1999 was marked by various forms of politically motivated violence, power abuses resulting in mass poverty, gross injustices occasioned by the capture of the country's legal system, and unchecked pilfering from the national treasury by office holders. Being used as an instrument to demand social justice, especially when governments seem to be repressive and there exists unprecedented social and political unrest, young Nigerian hip-hop artistes galvanised to speak truth to power. In the subsections that follow, we discuss each of these thematic frames as represented in the selected song lyrics.
Power Abuses and Mass Poverty
One of the social developments resisted by Nigerian hip-hop artistes is endemic corruption among top government officials, leading to mass poverty. Abdulkareem's “Nigeria Jaga Jaga” – released in 2002, meaning during President Obasanjo's tenure in office – battles with the chasm between the political class and the masses. The song bemoans the exposure of the latter to hardship by the country's elites. The lines Everything scatter scatter/Poor man dey suffer suffer (“Everything has gone bad/the poor man is suffering”) systematise and question how the economic situation in Nigeria has taken a downwards trend, a consequence of malfeasance and the mismanagement of national resources. Understanding the fundamentally unequal power relations between oppressor and oppressed, Abdulkareem sidesteps his generation's marginality and ostracisation to claim agency. The above lines sum, as such, up the gross abuse of power and the artistic efforts to counter that.
In the view of Foucault, Abdulkareem demonstrates how power is often seen as an unstable element that can always be challenged. Perceiving the inherent revolutionary ethos of the song, certain preventive actions were swiftly initiated by the Obasanjo administration to curtail its effects on the Nigerian people at large. It was banned from being played on radio and television stations across the country by the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission. This reaction from the government exemplifies the struggle for power over the enforcement of ideology to control how others think and behave.
The ban on “Nigeria Jaga Jaga” could not deter other hip-hop artists from speaking out against the abasement of the Nigerian people by those in power. In 2009, during President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua's reign, Sound Sultan released “Mathematics.” Following the revolutionary temper of Abdulkareem's examined song, Sultan also challenges power abuses and the ideology of oppression herewith: You dey stay AJ city Eh You live in AJ City, right? (Shetigbo?) (Yoruba, translates to “Have you heard?”) And him dey stay VG city And he stays in VG City (Shetigbo?) (Have you heard?) Find your level for AJ city Go to AJ City where you belong Na rich man corner be VG city It is the rich man who stays in VG City Try add AJ and VG city, all together, Oya Try to add AJ and VG City together The answer you get na wetin dey make
rich man oppress, na them suppress The answer you will get is that the
rich man oppresses and suppresses
The answer you get na wetin dey
make poor man dey press, but then agress. The answer you will get is that the poor is pressed and aggressed.
Sultan intellectualises Nigeria's situation: that is, the myriad forms of social dislocation seen in the country can be understood from the theoretical perspective of mathematics. The song title, accordingly, challenges the ideology of “accumulation by dispossession” (Das, 2017: 590), as characterising contemporary Nigeria's socio-economic system. Sultan bewails a situation whereby the poor cry because of lack and the rich belch and fart (mess) out of abundance: na wetin dey make the poor dey cry and rich man dey mess. This line is intertextual to Fela's “Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense,” where the late artiste also says poor man dey cry, rich man dey mess.
The oppressive tendency at work further broadens the long-standing gap between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless. Nigerian leaders’ proclivity for distorting information, fabricating “facts,” and misinforming people is aptly illuminated in the line and leaders dey lie (“and leaders lie”). Sultan is pained that those who are supposed to guide their charges on the path of honour are the same people who lie recklessly. “Mathematics” is, therefore, his graphic resistance to the grim circumstances facing poor Nigerians, who find themselves groaning under the heaviness of homegrown political contradictions. Sultan's lyrics productively engage their subject matter, and his critique of the government's mismanagement of the economy is tendentiously articulated.
Tuface's “For Instance” is another song that resists political high-handedness. It was released in 2006 during Obasanjo's second term in office. Tuface has, on several occasions, weaponised hip-hop culture in protesting, criticising, as well as lyrically reconstructing the nature and dynamics of the abuses of power perpetrated by the establishment. “For Instance” tells compelling tales about oppression and poverty, registering the collective anger among the country's youth at their marginalisation and abandonment: Dem just dey ignore our existence They are just ignoring our existence Dey create excuse, dey use excuse to buy plans They create excuses only to buy plans […] All we get is a pursing glance All we get is a pursing glance Anytime we stand for resistance Whenever we resist them When dem in the act of exploitance In their act of exploitation
Some years later, in 2018, Falz gave his native country's hip-hop scene some fervency when he released “This Is Nigeria.” Commenting on the song's revolutionary temper, Inyabri avers how in “recontextualizing Gambino's American lyric, Falz uses his own song to foreground and satirize a plethora of sociopolitical malaise that bedevil the Nigerian society” (2022: 370). Inyabri's summation holds true in that the song succinctly battles the state of despair and stages of anomy that have become of Nigeria: Extremely poor, and the medical facilities are poor We operate a predatory, neocolonial capitalist system Which is founded on fraud and exploitation, and therefore You are bound to have corruption institutionalised
Returning to Tuface's “For Instance,” the musician decries politicians’ greediness as expressed in their indifference to the people's plight: “They don’t really care about us/Because all they want to do is get in touch with big bucks.” Their only concern is deemed, as such, to be using the people to access the national treasury in order to enrich themselves, their cronies, and their families. Using lyrics as the weapon of the oppressed, there is objection expressed to the elites’ perception of the masses as marginal. In reminding the youth of politicians’ antics, Tuface takes a bold step in seeking to regulate their behaviour towards the masses. This is further expressed in the line “See, why do you keep deceiving the people, my brother, my sister?” These words are replete with unafraid exposition of the evil intentions at work, while empathetically describing the people as his “brothers and sisters.” Such use of kinship terms enables the cultivation of sociopolitical affinities with the Nigerian people they sing for. Onanuga upholds this view, stating that Nigeria's “hip hop can play an integrating role” (2024: 243) among the oppressed, and especially the youth.
Political/Electoral Violence
As noted above, Nigeria's Fourth Republic had to deal with the issue of electoral and politically motivated violence. Life became almost unliveable; since art can hardly be insulated from the social function it performs, Abdulkareem
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– one of Nigeria's most vocal hip-hop artists – released in consequence “Nigeria Jaga Jaga,” which translates to “Nigeria is hopelessly bad or Nigeria is spoilt” (Inyabri, 2022: 369). The impatience with his country's unbearable sociopolitical malaise under the Obasanjo administration is evident.
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Of importance, Abdulkareem details the high-profile political assignation characterising the Fourth Republic: Arm robber come your house Armed robber came to your house E no take money He did not steal money E no rape your wife He did not rape your wife Went straight to your house But went straight to your house And shot you down And shot you down Which arm robber no want money? What kind of armed robber that does not want
money? Na which arm robber no want jolly? What kind of armed robber who does not want
enjoyment? Na political arm robber be that It is a political arm robber Na wetin dey kill Nigeria O This is what is killing Nigeria
The political assassinations and unconstitutionality characterising Nigerian's democratic dispensation is indexed in the Pidgin expression jaga jaga. Inyabri writes that the eponymous song speaks truth to power in responding “directly to a culture of impunity, dictatorship, failed policies, embezzlement, strife and insecurity” (2022: 369). Thus, Abdulkareem's song unsettled the then president, as he interpreted it as an affront to his grip on power. Obasanjo retorted na him papa and mama jaga jaga (“It is his [Abdulkareem's] father and mother who are spoilt / gone mad”) (Inyabri, 2022: 369). Regardless, it was a bold, detailed narrative of the state of anomy in contemporary Nigeria as well as a challenge to the incumbent's tenure. 7
The dissent against politically motivated violence is similarly rekindled and rhetoricised in Sultan's “Mathematics.” The artiste is disconcerted with how politicians instigate the electorate's violent attacks on one another: “Unexplainable pain in our hearts not to mention/Brothers killing brothers for the wages adoration.” The brutality that characterises Nigerian politics expresses itself during campaigning, where the electorate kill one another because of financial inducements from politicians. Again we see how Sultan, like his compatriots, shows power not to be possessed by one person or group. So he attempts to suppress the oppressors’ knowledge to establish other forms thereof.
Similarly, Tuface's “E Be Like Say” (“It Is as Though”) engages the political class as well as mobilises the masses to act decisively when they come asking for their votes during election time. Released in 2011 when President Goodluck Jonathan was seeking re-election and featuring Soul E, Tuface draws his listeners’ attention to the recurring antics Nigeria's upper echelons deploy during election time. The song details how they use youth as thugs and foot soldiers, heating the polity and triggering electoral violence in the process. This makes Tuface ask See, why you make all these people to dey fight one another? (“Why do you instigate the people to fight one another?”). This can be read as the unafraid articulation of the flagrant exploitation of the people.
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In his protest against the use of the youth as political thugs and foot soldiers, Tuface becomes philosophical and pedagogical. The song both questions and educates Nigerian politicians on what real power entails, how it must be put to use: The power is nothing If your people keep dying of disease and starvation The power is nothing If your people have no peace The power is nothing If your people cannot live in unity
Looting and the Compromised Legal System
Beyond youths’ exclusion from governance,
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the political class is involved in massive looting of the nation's treasury and therewith further impoverishing citizens. In a poverty-stricken country like Nigeria, the youth expect that its politicians would invest in the country so as to improve the lot of the people at large. In “For Instance,” Tuface wonders why Nigerian elites chose as they did: To dey make we dey give chance They cause us to make way Instead of to dey pack the money go France Instead of siphoning the loot to France Dey make suffer to full in abundance They cause suffering to be in abundance
The severe practices of the Nigerian legal system have been at the front of national discourse for some time by now, not escaping Sultan's critical attention accordingly. 10 The lines The answer you get na wetin/Dey make innocent man rot inside jail (“The answer you get is that the innocent man rots in jail”) lambast a judicial system in which innocent Nigerians suffer because they do not have the money to bribe their way out of prison. Justice in Nigeria is for those who either have connections in high places or the money to buy it. Herein lies the necessity and inevitability of hip-hop in resisting oppression and illegality. There are several cases where people are arrested and locked up in jail without trial, some of them dying in detention while awaiting a court appearance.
The weak or near absence of justice has emboldened some Nigerians to licentiously steal from the national treasury. In referencing the high-level pilfering going on, Falz calls out in “This Is Nigeria” one Madam Philomena: Wey da Madam Philomena? Where is Madam Philomena? Money vanish for office Money vanished from your office 36 milli, you talk say na animal 36 million, you said it was some animal that swallowed it
Addressing the country's propensity for denialism, Falz bemoans the fact that this could only happen in Nigeria. The woman can make such a vague claim because she knows she will escape the wrath of the law. Even if she is arrested, it will be “settled” (a Nigerian English euphemism for corrupt practices) with the police. Following Philomena's claim, animals have been accused of swallowing money in Nigeria by others, too. On 15 August 2022, for instance, Premium Times, an online Nigerian newspaper, reported that officials of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) alleged termites ate up documents containing expenditures worth 17.1 billion naira. The NSITF management made such a claim when it appeared before the Senate Public Accounts Committee. Like other cases of financial mismanagement, the culprits, too, will ultimately get off scot-free.
Under the Buhari administration, which “This Is Nigeria” is reflective of, there were numerous probes of financial impropriety in various sectors of the economy as well as trials of past governors, serving ministers, and public office holders; however, none of the culprits were brought to book. Rather, “criminal cases are settled in police stations.” The legal system works only effectively against the poor as “This Is Nigeria” illustrates: “looters” that should ordinarily be in jail are allowed to contest elections.
Brain-Drain/Japa Syndrome
Another prominent issue thematised in the select artistes’ songs is the brain-drain syndrome, otherwise known as japa, a Nigerian English expression for forceful migration out of the country owing to economic hardship. As Sultan's “Mathematics” recounts:
The answer you get na wetin dey make
people dey jah, commot for naija
The answer you get is why people are
running away from Nigeria
The answer you get na wetin dey make
people dey travel, by hook or by crook
The answer you get is why people
travel by hook or by crook
The answer you get na wetin dey make
people dey sleep for embassy for visa
The answer you get is why people sleep
at embassies for visas
The answer you get na wetin dey make
people dey sell them property for ticket
The answer you get is why people
sell their property to buy tickets
Sultan laments how the drive for survival and better living conditions continue to force millions of young Nigerians to put their lives on the line in their attempt to cross over to Europe and other parts of the world. The quest to escape unemployment, poverty, hunger, and insecurity, among other difficult situations, has been responsible for a major segment of Nigeria's productive population seeking alternatives for themselves and their families abroad. Nigerians go through harrowing experiences to get visas to Europe or North America: they sell their property to buy tickets; they sleep outside embassies for a number of nights on end, exposed to the elements; they explore every available means to escape the inexpressible daily hardship encountered in the country. This has constituted a major reason for illegal migration – by hook or by crook, as Sultan puts it. Nigerians who aspire to get to Europe without a visa must pass through Libya and other North African countries with all that entails.
In “For Instance,” Tuface, too, connects the youth's desire to escape hardship and poverty with the bad handling of Nigeria's economy by those in power: Dey make suffer full in abundance They cause suffering to be in abundance Dey make me wan run away to a place They want to cause me to run away to
another place Where dem go respect my skills, for instance Where my skills will be respected, for instance
In “This Is Nigeria,” Falz also draws his listeners’ attention to how, in order to survive economic hardship, many of the country's youth have to do multiple jobs. Yet, they go unappreciated and are demonised. So Falz takes a swipe at Buhari, who once said Nigeria's youth are lazy: Your people are still working multiple jobs/And they talk say we lazy o (“The people are working multiple jobs, yet you [the president] say the youths are lazy”). He decries the socio-economic upheavals his generation encounters as well as lambasts the president's hypocrisy. In a strategic seizure of power, Falz redirects the laziness accusation towards Buhari, anchoring it in poor economic policies and the inability of the president's team to proffer solutions to Nigeria's innumerable woes. He sings: Never end the recession o/When looters and killers and stealers are still contesting elections o/Politicians wey thief some billions and billion no dey go prison (“You have failed to end recession/Looters, thieves, and killers are still contesting elections/Politicians who have stolen billions are not imprisoned”). If he, Buhari, is unable to address all these issues, he is the lazy one, not the Nigerian youth working several jobs simultaneously.
In “E Be Like Say,” Tuface similarly notes how “shady politicians” are responsible for the “harsh condition” of living faced by Nigerians. Except for when seeking career advancement and other forms of business, no one would want to leave their country for another. So, unrealistic economic principles and bad governance orchestrated by “shady politicians” have brought about forceful out-migration. These hip-hop artistes lament the government's inability to revamp the economy to the betterment of Nigerians generally, which would make them stay. This validates the submission that hip-hop “has been deployed to articulate resistance to a dominant elite mainstream” (Omoniyi, 2009: 125).
Discussion and Conclusion
With analytical insights drawn from Foucault's (1990, 2002) theories on power and knowledge, we provided a textual and historical exploration of Nigeria's hip-hop culture and its interrogation of power as well as production of resistance. We pursued this objective by envisioning hip-hop as a site of struggle and knowledge production, arguing that the sampled artistes challenged popular ideations of power and responded to the prevailing sociopolitical issues at the time they each composed their respective songs. With our conceptual framework, we demonstrated how, beyond the regular understanding of hip-hop as entertainment, a cohort of Nigerian youths who are professional artistes have consistently turned to the genre as a viable alternative to engaging with and resisting domestic power abuses. They use their lyrics as weapons to demand social justice, good governance, and better representation from those holding power, distributing knowledge at the various time intervals depicted. Textual analysis of the selected songs and references to other hip-hop artistes emphasised the connection between power and knowledge and how they are exercised.
Unarguably, these songs have influenced political activism in Nigeria and increased youth participation in the country's decision-making processes. Politicians, except in cases where elections are rigged, 11 are increasingly becoming aware that their re-election is tied to their performance. Nigerian youth are more outspoken than they used to be. 12 Politicians who underperform hardly get re-elected. In Cross River State, for example, then-governor Professor Ben Ayade could not win at the polls in Cross River Northern Senatorial District. This is despite the fact that he was still in office when he contested the position. The people preferred the current incumbent, Senator Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe, to Professor Ayade because of the former's strides made on development. The vote massively went against Professor Ayade, to the point that he lost the election even in his hometown, Obudu.
The artistes in question use a mixture of languages and linguistic modes: Nigerian English, slang, neology, metaphorisation, and indigenous tongues; Nigerian Pidgin is, however, the vernacular predominantly featuring across the sampled songs. Okunola (2024) writes that the incorporation of Nigerian Pidgin and indigenous languages into domestic hip-hop culture extends beyond the celebration of linguistic heritage, functioning as a form of resistance as well. Not only does this diverse linguistic blend depict the freedom of expression associated with hip-hop; it also represents how linguistic choices are interdiscursive in nature (Aboh, Oni and Uwen, 2025), in that they resonate with the artistic desire to question power, (re)produce knowledge and liberate the oppressed from the grips of social contradictions and malfeasance. Thus, for these individuals, “inscribing their language in the genre is simply a way of achieving authenticity and asserting their agency” (Onanuga, 2024: 6).
Though it is beyond the scope of this study to account for how Nigerian Pidgin is deployed by the artistes in constructing a national identity, it is pertinent to mention that many use it in their songs not only for its cohesive function; it is also illuminative of their craving to communicate expressly in a language that both educated and non-educated Nigerians can relate to. Sultan understands this idiomatic need clearly; in the opening dialogue of “Mathematics” he thus asks: “By the way, do you understand pidgin English?” Leaning towards speaking in a language that can be readily understood is pertinent to how “power is a system, a network of relations involving the whole society, rather than a relation between the oppressed and the oppressor” (Mills, 2003: 3). This provides a discernible vista into how the artistes’ knowledge of the oppressors’ antics enables them to speak back, redirect the people, and ultimately claim power from those supposedly holding it.
The freedom of expression that accompanied the return to democracy also engineered the protest songs scrutinised. That is not to suggest there was no protest prior to 1999 via the medium of music or otherwise, as we outlined. The “power of language” (Aboh et al., 2024) – the freedom it encapsulates – manifests in the artistes’ pronominal choices. They constantly use “you,” dem (“they”), “we,” “our,” and “your” to signpost the power dynamics that exist between the oppressor and the oppressed, and the resistance coming therewith on the part of the latter. This way of using language gives the artistes a sense of satisfaction, enabling them to get back at those who abuse public office. In this regard, such conscious deployment accounts for the polarisation between “us” (the oppressed/powerless) versus “them” (the oppressor/powerful); the pronouns function, accordingly, as tools of constructing power and knowledge according to the artistes’ own perceptions.
Unlike other songs examined in this study, Falz's “This Is Nigeria” speaks both to the masses and the political class alike. It derides the moral decadence increasingly seen in the country. For example, he hits out at how religious leaders under the shield of spiritism exploit and sexually abuse their female congregants: “Pastor put out his hands on the breast of his members / He's pulling the demon out.” Akung argues that in Nigeria, “the institution of religion has been abused for the selfish gains of man” (2013: 109). Other issues that do not escape Falz's critical gaze are the increased rate of yahoo yahoo (“cybercrime”) by Nigerian youths, the crippled healthcare system, the institutionalisation of brutality by SARS, 13 killings perpetrated by Fulani herdsmen, and similar. Falz has been likened to Fela because of his directness in protesting against the many abuses and misuses of power to be found in a supposedly democratic dispensation. While several years ago many Nigerians never thought of having again an artiste who could speak truth to power like Fela did, Falz made himself the link “between that era of socially and politically conscious music that reminds millions of Nigerians of the legendary figure [Fela]” (Olanrewaju, 2018) and the new generation of musicians. While the song, as expected, received commendation from many quarters for its holistic dissection of Nigeria's moral depravity, it was not devoid of rebukes – especially from Muslim Rights Concern, given the extent of its bluntness. Like Abdulkareem's examined song, the National Broadcasting Commission also placed a ban on “This Is Nigeria,” citing its “vulgar lyrics” (The Nation, 2019).
Undertaking research of this nature, especially in a country that has so many hip-hop artistes, makes selecting the ones to examine challenging. Some were chosen per a historical perspective, as explained in the Methodology. In the course of so doing, we discovered that the artistes use different language styles: mostly Nigerian Pidgin, Nigerian English, borrowing from Nigerian languages, and code-switching. This could be a worthy area of further research for those interested in studying language, especially as regards its use in the construction of ethnonational identity.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We wish to express our gratitude to two anonymous reviewers of this article for the fresh perspectives and insights they recommended, which greatly improved the quality of the article. We appreciate Professor Idom T. Inyabri, University of Calabar, for useful discussions, and Patrick Chukwudike Okpalaeke, York University, Canada, for the remarkable insights offered, and some of the literature provided while producing this article. We acknowledge James Powell for his copy-editing support. We take responsibility for any errors.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
