Most Nigerians of my generation have often found one reason or the other to define or defend them selves in the context of assigned social perceptions of them. From music to Literature, to educational achievement, we have had to be measured up against standards of the past, quite unfairly, I dare say, given the facts of times. Naturally we rebel, sometimes to emphasise difference and, sometimes, for the fun of it. Of course, every generation views the one after it with a kind of critical suspicion bothering on nostalgia for a time gone by; and the one before with an impulsive desire for departure. It is the impatient nature of this desire to depart from the ‘old’, this will to clear a definitive space of identity and representation that incidentally ruptures what should have been a fluid passage of time. Dr. Abati’s piece in his column ‘Crossroads’, in The Guardian on Sunday of June 21, on the crisis of identity and contemporary Nigerian music, has kick-started a debate coloured with a lot of generational tensions. But it is good that Dr. Abati has inaugurated this debate, after all, hip hop in the USA, where it originated from, has created its own distinctive critics, criticism and journalism. Naija hip hop needs this kind of critical engagement for its own health and sanity.
But every generation defines its identity and cultural orientations, and mine- this Yahoozee generation - is defined, largely, through the cultural cognition of the hip hop practices. Well, that is a break in tradition, as Dr. Abati rightly pointed out in his critique of Nigeria hip hop scene, since the earlier generation referred to did not do music in hip hop tradition. These musicians ‘of soulful, meaningful tunes’ of the 70’s and 80’s, who Abati so romanticized, however, did not inscribe any coherent musical tradition as it were: They practiced within different and diverse genres but there is hardly any homogeneity of aesthetics, a structure of rhythm or political ideology – indeed, no identity of passion to define their works as a tradition aside the fact that they inhabited same space of time. So there seems to be no tradition to be broken as such. Unless we can honestly bind artistes as different as Tunji Oyelana and Haruna Ishola, Salawa Abeni and Rex Lawson, with a recognizable artistic or aesthetic umbilical cords! On the other hand the hip hoppers operate within a rich and vibrant tradition that boasts of impressive ancestors as Work songs, Gospel, Blues, Jazz, Black Arts and other African-American cultural practices. This tradition is best not alienated from its African roots!
Hip hop movement began under the conditions of deprivation and poverty. And maybe if men and women of my generation had had a tiny bit of opportunities and resources (relatively stable economy, stronger educational sector etc) that the generation before it grew up with, maybe we would be more mainstream in our cultural practices, maybe we would pay more attention to orchestra and musical notes and boardroom dances, may be we would be less conscious of poverty mentality in our creative productions and sing of beauty of Tafawa Balewa Square and glittering lights of Abuja nights, instead of Kokolettes and Barcadi. But this is a generation twice dispossessed, hopeless except for the succour of creative vistas opened up by hip hop, stand up comedy and hip hop-influenced fashion industry
Let us also remember that hip hop is very much aware of its nature as a youth culture, as ‘street’; it is aware of its own outside-ness and rebellion which have always marked it down for the margins in terms of power and tolerance. If the earlier practitioners had not embraced their cultural disenfranchisement from the main stream (much the way the earliest practitioners of Jazz did) with aesthetic sense of its internal identity, the industry would not have had a culture of entrepreneurship so successful that hip hoppers now occupy places in world millionaire list.
I think it amounts to self contradiction to admit these young people are practicing hip hop in one breath and accuse them of ‘irreverent and creative’ language use and imitation of western clothing style and attitude, in another. Hip hop as a part of urban culture operates as a mesh of styles, attitudes and variegated representations. Designer labels are as integral a part of hip hop register as is expensive liquor; so is the attitude of clothing. Olu Maintain or 9ice does not have to be an alcoholic to praise the status drinking Moet confers on the drinker: it is a prop for ‘bragging rights’, merely, a verbal swagger. It borders on what Rha Goddess called the ‘idea of struggle, of being able to tell…and live a rags-to-riches story’. You would hear it in Olu Maintain’s ‘Story of My Life’, in Ajasa/9ice’s ‘Fe nu won so’, in D banj’s Mo bo lowo Won’.
Irreverent creativity of language use by Nigerian hip hoppers is better contextualized in the idea of the ‘community of meaning’ in popular culture. Meaning in hip hop, as in Afro Beat, is generated through a process of signification that reflects complex systems of codes, tropes and ‘lexical approximation, easily recognizable to those who belong in the community.’ Hip hop language is as irreverent as Ginsberg’s was when he wrote Howl, a book that inspired the upsurge of Beat tradition of poetry in America, and influences the incantatory output of poets of Black Power Movement like Amiri Baraka. It does not really matter whether Nigeria is reduced to naija, what is important is how ‘naija’ is projected to the world. Naija is a term of endearment; a term we variously used when the ‘elderly’ law makers throw chairs in the hallowed chambers or when the ‘young’ Chimamanda wins a literary prize. Naming, especially, is aesthetics. Public Enemy, Dbanj, Africa Bambata, Lord of Ajasa: do we not sense a kind of desire to transgress identity here? What would it profit his music if King Sunny Ade was known as Isola Adeniyi Adegeye? How much aesthetic identity does ‘Barry’ enjoy when his music is being praised among his fans that are too impatient to mouth his longer real name? Orlando Owoh does sound better to me than Owomoyela on the album jacket!
And contrary to the opinion that Nigerian hip hoppers merely ape western artistes, it is important we ‘notice’ that there is a way that Nigerian hip hoppers can lay claims to a nationalist aesthetics in that process. The texture and meaning of Lord of Ajasa‘s or 9ice’s music, for instance, will make it difficult to conclude they ape any foreign influences in their compositions. 9ice’s linguistic innovations, for instance, is almost unprecedented: to some of us who are witnessing the regression of artistic purity of language use in contemporary Fuji and Juju, 9ice’s songs surely appeal to some tribal memory lost with ‘Alawiye’ texts. Hip hop is supremely aware of its space, its place in wresting meaning out of the street of its experience. That is why Kwaito in South Africa and Genge of Kenya speak the world wide vernacular of hip hop, though their significations and references reside in these countries.
Despite the lamentable incursion of international capitalist agenda into hip hop industry which ‘globalises’ hip hop music more as commerce than art , some hip hop artistes all over the world can still lay a claim to the pristine tradition. How unfair it would seem if 50 Cent and Talib Kweli, Lil Wayne and Lupee Fiasco, Durella and Djinee, Bigianno and Etcetera are tied together in a critical blame. I believe, like a lot of other right-thinking young men and women of my generation who listen to hip hop that the industry has a lot of ‘unreflective’ artistes, but to associate names like 9ice, Banky W, Sound Sultan or Tuface(yes Tuface) to ‘meaninglessness’ is failing to grasp the psychology of a generation. Hip hoppers are moieties of diverse creative tempers or orientations and it will not be critically justified to reduce them all to curious pieces outside the normative board.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
The Festschrift for Prof.Dan Izevbaye
absent for quite a while on this blog, i believe iam back now,for good. a lot of stuffs must have passed through time which i could not track down on this page:but it is good,the world simply happened to me.i can now say to me that iam welcome.
***
i got a copy of the book, The Postcolonial Lamp: Essays in Honour of Dan Izevbaye, edited by Remi Raji-Oyelade and Niyi Okunoye.Now because of the not so robust state of literary criticism and theory(indeed the sorry state of knowledge production generally) in Nigerian academia,those still interested in literary knowwledge should get a copy of this book.Not because it is necessary different from other books we have seen in the tradition of "---in honour of", but because of illuminating depth of a few of the contributions in the book.
Pius Adesanmi's esssay especially touches a strong point in the troubled water that literary and critical enterprise has become in (African and)Nigerian Departments of English and Literary Studies.The critical paths forged by the earlier literary critics like Izevbaye,Irele,Obumselu, Eceruo and so on have not been sufficiently widened to walk with the contemporary writings of literary,cricism,
theory and discourse.For instance who is studying Ofeimun with passion and critical vision with which Ogunba,and Izevbaye had studied Soyinka? Who indeed is giving more than a short- review critical attention to Bamidele-Thomas,Abani,Helen Oyeyemi,Habila the way Izevbaye and Anozie dissected Okigbo? At least Osundare,Osofisan,Ojaide,Williams,Jeyifo,Garuba,Darah,Afejuku,Amuta walked almost the same moments as critics and creative writers.
Altough, Adesanmi's contention is what he calls 'appearance of African absence' in contemporary literary theory,the critical debacle also boils down to the fact of lack of zest for serious critical work by the literary scholars in the Nigerian university. Incidentally, this blogger,as a student, had also asked the same question from the subject of the book,Prof. Izevbaye in an interview intended to be published in a student magazine. The question was on why the African scholar of literature has refused to participate in the post-colonial debate.(We had recently encountered Harry Garuba's Animist aesthetics).
Imagine:A lecturer(with Phd) in a Nigerian University recently condemned a Master's thesis as being too"over sabi",with tall "grammar" echoed another, a professor!The candidate had thought he was using the 'language of the trade' to investigate Walcott and Oguibe.It is this kind of disregard for 'elevating' language of discourse -which indian post clonial scholars have raised to a level of theoretical value-that Adesanmi bemoans in Nigerian critic.
No less illuminating are other essays by Isidore Dialla, Remi Raji,Sola Olorunyomi,Laura Moss,Harry Garuba and so on.
***
i got a copy of the book, The Postcolonial Lamp: Essays in Honour of Dan Izevbaye, edited by Remi Raji-Oyelade and Niyi Okunoye.Now because of the not so robust state of literary criticism and theory(indeed the sorry state of knowledge production generally) in Nigerian academia,those still interested in literary knowwledge should get a copy of this book.Not because it is necessary different from other books we have seen in the tradition of "---in honour of", but because of illuminating depth of a few of the contributions in the book.
Pius Adesanmi's esssay especially touches a strong point in the troubled water that literary and critical enterprise has become in (African and)Nigerian Departments of English and Literary Studies.The critical paths forged by the earlier literary critics like Izevbaye,Irele,Obumselu, Eceruo and so on have not been sufficiently widened to walk with the contemporary writings of literary,cricism,
theory and discourse.For instance who is studying Ofeimun with passion and critical vision with which Ogunba,and Izevbaye had studied Soyinka? Who indeed is giving more than a short- review critical attention to Bamidele-Thomas,Abani,Helen Oyeyemi,Habila the way Izevbaye and Anozie dissected Okigbo? At least Osundare,Osofisan,Ojaide,Williams,Jeyifo,Garuba,Darah,Afejuku,Amuta walked almost the same moments as critics and creative writers.
Altough, Adesanmi's contention is what he calls 'appearance of African absence' in contemporary literary theory,the critical debacle also boils down to the fact of lack of zest for serious critical work by the literary scholars in the Nigerian university. Incidentally, this blogger,as a student, had also asked the same question from the subject of the book,Prof. Izevbaye in an interview intended to be published in a student magazine. The question was on why the African scholar of literature has refused to participate in the post-colonial debate.(We had recently encountered Harry Garuba's Animist aesthetics).
Imagine:A lecturer(with Phd) in a Nigerian University recently condemned a Master's thesis as being too"over sabi",with tall "grammar" echoed another, a professor!The candidate had thought he was using the 'language of the trade' to investigate Walcott and Oguibe.It is this kind of disregard for 'elevating' language of discourse -which indian post clonial scholars have raised to a level of theoretical value-that Adesanmi bemoans in Nigerian critic.
No less illuminating are other essays by Isidore Dialla, Remi Raji,Sola Olorunyomi,Laura Moss,Harry Garuba and so on.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
for marechera
This
Iam exhuming this poem i wrote after reading 'The Mindblast'. I encountered him first (and got knocked off with awe)at a literature class in the University- House of Hunger, The Black Sunlight,'Thought Tracks in the Snow'etc.Who has not read Marechera? Now as they celebrate his life and work at the University of Oxford,UK, i offer an ode.
marechera
wield a typewriter like a conscience
a nomad finger, tapping on the nerves of truth…
these keys aren’t too keen on hiding these skeletons
dirt is aesthetics
if you can feel the purse of darkness,
lay words to tend a sickness within:
and without the healer belongs to the stricken tent;
demons lurk in the details of propitiation
and they do not always wear pale skin now, do they?
what if a rucksack is a corpus of vision?
what if you see beauty through the eye on your soles?
will home be defined in relation to exile?
home is the context the mind
battles for a text; life darkly lived
in an open-eyed dream- and exile
unwieldy like a lingo of this god
Monday, March 30, 2009
bloggers speak literature
Below a review of Nigerian literary blogs i wrote for nigerianstalk.cheggiout.
Literature is always a minority affair. Even in the blogosphere where we are continually inundated with massive proliferation of voices and concerns. Yet, a literary blog posses more danger to structured scholarship than any other kind of blog. The idea of a literary blog is to widen access to works of art and extend the reaches of critical activities. But the word ‘critical’ is used guardedly here because the supposed democracy of the blogosphere, which admits of individuated (oft exaggerated) rights of voice within the multitude of voices, can also translate to ‘uncritical’ adventure for the blogger-reviewer! The danger is that the peculiar character of blogosphere as a site of discourse, its nature of immediacy, might not lend a strong, well thought-out spine to literary opinions and commentary and therefore might create a situation of ‘attenuation of taste and conservatism of judgment, to borrow words from Ronan McDonald.
Yet the blogsville should not be a place where literature goes to ruin. And Nigerian literary bloggers, it seems, still cede the rights of place for critical erudition on, and dissection of, literary works to a few (rarefied) academic journals, a small number of e-zines devoted to literary activities and (although less ebullient nowadays) art pages of newspapers. Most Nigerian literary blogs approach the treatment of literary materials with a reportorial light-heart rather than academic diligence. It is just as well. It is however hard to find a blog devoted entirely to profiling Nigerian writers-their biographies and their works- in the way anglocamlit.blogspot.com is doing for Cameroonian Anglophone Literature.
Molara Wood’s wordsbody is perhaps the most popular literary blogs in Nigeria and one whose views are taken seriously by a lot of readers. Although Wordsbody covers the broad spectrum of the arts, its literary slant is quite noticeable. The blog’s last entry is in December ’08 and it announces the Farafina’s Visual Arts and Literature Event. This event included a film screening of MW’s own ‘Molara Wood in conversation with Ben Okri’. It will be greatly rewarding however to visit her old posts.
Somaila Isah Umaisha’s everything literature is one of the most vibrant, most engaging literary blogs in the country. The latest post explores the link between sports and culture through the background of recently concluded National Sports Festival in Kaduna. Umaisha reports that the culture content of the Sports event included 300 contemporary performers and 200 cultural performers, a festival play, The Royal Chamber, written by award winning playwright, Yahaya Dangana and a festival poem read by Alkasim Abdulkadir, the national publicity secretary of Association of Nigeria Authors. The report is accompanied with photos from the events.
Kingsley Keke’s poetry blog, Poetivation posts a poem ,’Life’, dedicated to his new born niece, Rihanna, ‘and every newborn babies(sic) in the world’ The short poem traces the growth of Rihanna from the yoke to uterus to labour and the breaking forth ‘like a rushing of tap’. Such imagery.
Onyeka Nwelue of Castle of the Writer reproduces a paper he presented at PAGES as part of the exhibition, ‘The World is Round’. The paper is titled ‘The Writer’s Work as Geographer’. Nwelue in the paper discusses how the joy of seeing description of a recognizable place in a book enhances a reading pleasure. He describes how he (together with friends) has discovered to his pleasure that the house Chimamanda herself used to live in matches one described in Purple Hibiscus as Aunty Ifeoma’s .He concludes that ‘fictionalizing real settings with the real names can help a city, a country by luring more tourists into it’. A good read though a little not as deep as expected for a topic that describes a creative symbiosis between literature and the map.
Eromo Egbejule of The Barbecue Republic reviews Oyeka Nwelue’s book, The Abyssinian Boy, situating its thematic concerns in ‘the social political cum ethnic cum religious links between Nigeria and India. The book gets his critical rebuke for its excessive use of flashback device and incredibility in the part where a 62 year old woman in a Nigerian village is said to be gay. Aside this textual harm as noticed by the reviewer, the review is generally sympathetic and the book is predicted to win an award this year.
Jude Dibia’s JUDE DIBIA discusses the protest of gay rights activists to the Nigerian law makers in relation to the proposed bill that legalises arrest of suspected homosexuals by the Police. Jude Dibia examines the protest of these ‘invisibles’ against a repressive law within the context of his novel, Walking with Shadows about challenges of the homosexuals in an unaccommodating society.
Osondu Awaraka of Incessant Scribble posts to announce his relocation to the US and its enabling possibility for more efficient blogosphere experience. He also announces the list of books he’s waiting to review on the blog; these include Helen Oyeyemi’s The Opposite House, Habila’s Measuring Time and Sefi Atta’s Everything Good Will Come.
Wole Oguntokun of Laspapi announces the continuation of Soyinka’s Death and King’s Horseman at Olivier Hall of the National Theatre, London till may. Wole Oguntokun who is better known for his light-hearted column, The Girl Whisperer, in ‘Life’ magazine of Nigeria’s The Guardian on Sunday ,( The Girl Whisper is also posted on ‘laspapi’) is a Lagos based theatre director and consultant to the research crew of National Theatre London on the play.
The two ladies of The Bookaholic Blog post a short review of Doreen Baingana’s Tropical Fish- Tales from Entebbe. Describing the arresting nature of the book cover, the blog also notices that Ms Baingana’s effort is bold as it tackles ‘hard and sensitive issues such as faith, cohesion, religion, evolution of culture…’and so on. You might want to read the review to prompt your search for the book.
Literature is always a minority affair. Even in the blogosphere where we are continually inundated with massive proliferation of voices and concerns. Yet, a literary blog posses more danger to structured scholarship than any other kind of blog. The idea of a literary blog is to widen access to works of art and extend the reaches of critical activities. But the word ‘critical’ is used guardedly here because the supposed democracy of the blogosphere, which admits of individuated (oft exaggerated) rights of voice within the multitude of voices, can also translate to ‘uncritical’ adventure for the blogger-reviewer! The danger is that the peculiar character of blogosphere as a site of discourse, its nature of immediacy, might not lend a strong, well thought-out spine to literary opinions and commentary and therefore might create a situation of ‘attenuation of taste and conservatism of judgment, to borrow words from Ronan McDonald.
Yet the blogsville should not be a place where literature goes to ruin. And Nigerian literary bloggers, it seems, still cede the rights of place for critical erudition on, and dissection of, literary works to a few (rarefied) academic journals, a small number of e-zines devoted to literary activities and (although less ebullient nowadays) art pages of newspapers. Most Nigerian literary blogs approach the treatment of literary materials with a reportorial light-heart rather than academic diligence. It is just as well. It is however hard to find a blog devoted entirely to profiling Nigerian writers-their biographies and their works- in the way anglocamlit.blogspot.com is doing for Cameroonian Anglophone Literature.
Molara Wood’s wordsbody is perhaps the most popular literary blogs in Nigeria and one whose views are taken seriously by a lot of readers. Although Wordsbody covers the broad spectrum of the arts, its literary slant is quite noticeable. The blog’s last entry is in December ’08 and it announces the Farafina’s Visual Arts and Literature Event. This event included a film screening of MW’s own ‘Molara Wood in conversation with Ben Okri’. It will be greatly rewarding however to visit her old posts.
Somaila Isah Umaisha’s everything literature is one of the most vibrant, most engaging literary blogs in the country. The latest post explores the link between sports and culture through the background of recently concluded National Sports Festival in Kaduna. Umaisha reports that the culture content of the Sports event included 300 contemporary performers and 200 cultural performers, a festival play, The Royal Chamber, written by award winning playwright, Yahaya Dangana and a festival poem read by Alkasim Abdulkadir, the national publicity secretary of Association of Nigeria Authors. The report is accompanied with photos from the events.
Kingsley Keke’s poetry blog, Poetivation posts a poem ,’Life’, dedicated to his new born niece, Rihanna, ‘and every newborn babies(sic) in the world’ The short poem traces the growth of Rihanna from the yoke to uterus to labour and the breaking forth ‘like a rushing of tap’. Such imagery.
Onyeka Nwelue of Castle of the Writer reproduces a paper he presented at PAGES as part of the exhibition, ‘The World is Round’. The paper is titled ‘The Writer’s Work as Geographer’. Nwelue in the paper discusses how the joy of seeing description of a recognizable place in a book enhances a reading pleasure. He describes how he (together with friends) has discovered to his pleasure that the house Chimamanda herself used to live in matches one described in Purple Hibiscus as Aunty Ifeoma’s .He concludes that ‘fictionalizing real settings with the real names can help a city, a country by luring more tourists into it’. A good read though a little not as deep as expected for a topic that describes a creative symbiosis between literature and the map.
Eromo Egbejule of The Barbecue Republic reviews Oyeka Nwelue’s book, The Abyssinian Boy, situating its thematic concerns in ‘the social political cum ethnic cum religious links between Nigeria and India. The book gets his critical rebuke for its excessive use of flashback device and incredibility in the part where a 62 year old woman in a Nigerian village is said to be gay. Aside this textual harm as noticed by the reviewer, the review is generally sympathetic and the book is predicted to win an award this year.
Jude Dibia’s JUDE DIBIA discusses the protest of gay rights activists to the Nigerian law makers in relation to the proposed bill that legalises arrest of suspected homosexuals by the Police. Jude Dibia examines the protest of these ‘invisibles’ against a repressive law within the context of his novel, Walking with Shadows about challenges of the homosexuals in an unaccommodating society.
Osondu Awaraka of Incessant Scribble posts to announce his relocation to the US and its enabling possibility for more efficient blogosphere experience. He also announces the list of books he’s waiting to review on the blog; these include Helen Oyeyemi’s The Opposite House, Habila’s Measuring Time and Sefi Atta’s Everything Good Will Come.
Wole Oguntokun of Laspapi announces the continuation of Soyinka’s Death and King’s Horseman at Olivier Hall of the National Theatre, London till may. Wole Oguntokun who is better known for his light-hearted column, The Girl Whisperer, in ‘Life’ magazine of Nigeria’s The Guardian on Sunday ,( The Girl Whisper is also posted on ‘laspapi’) is a Lagos based theatre director and consultant to the research crew of National Theatre London on the play.
The two ladies of The Bookaholic Blog post a short review of Doreen Baingana’s Tropical Fish- Tales from Entebbe. Describing the arresting nature of the book cover, the blog also notices that Ms Baingana’s effort is bold as it tackles ‘hard and sensitive issues such as faith, cohesion, religion, evolution of culture…’and so on. You might want to read the review to prompt your search for the book.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
The unusual Suspect in Ilorin
The story of the goat arrested by the Nigeria Police Force for armed robbery has generated a lot of fuss. The outrage and incredulity that attended the ‘bizarre’ incident have been infectious and, of course, the cyber space has had its fair share. How could a man, a robbery suspect, being pursued by a vigilante group, suddenly change to a goat! Of course it had to be a grand conspiracy by the men of the Nigeria police ‘to shield the real suspect away from justice’, someone said: such mumbojumbo is not new to this controversial force. But then it has been established that the suspect goat was captured and brought to the police station by a local vigilante group.
I had imagined that the police would be momentarily confused beyond action: What to do with this piece of fetish? What to do with this suspect-man-goat? Reports. Consultations. More consultations. The goat was caught in the act, wasn’t he? He is the suspect! Shock. Disbelief. Outrage. But that was not what happened evidently. The goat was taken into custody, ‘understandingly’, some one said, and the media blitz that followed nearly blinded the force.
In the thick of the media outrage,however, the apparently embarrassed police issued a statement reminding us that the suspect had been arrested by other people, the men of the vigilante group, who dragged it to the police station and then informed the media. Unless we accuse this local vigilante group of following their own hidden agenda or better still conniving with the police to introduce a metaphysical dimension to the case of attempted theft in order to hamper justice, the explanation of the police must suffice. Although what to do about the goat is another matter.
But some police reforms activists were already bemoaning the low level of education among the police according to BBC News online which cited more sources to corroborate this factor of ignorance. It would make sense. Otherwise which ‘enlightened’ national police will arrest a goat as suspect of car theft? What educated mind will accuse a goat of witchcraft? Thanks to efforts of people like Teju Cole (Next on Sunday, Feb 15) who have been able to situate the story in context of representations, of reproduction and reception of knowledge. Thanks, because a whole lot of more ‘educated Nigerians’ have been going about calling the policemen shameless and illiterate, without pausing a bit to consider the possible contradiction in their argument ,without first rummaging in their own bag of received norms.
My point is simple: If these policemen had had PhDs in, say, criminology, would they have been more discerning to the absurdity of the suspect goat? Would their cultural background have prepared them to respond with reflection rather than reflex? I do not think so. Because reflection would have meant turning away from the absurdity of the case, while their cultural reflex enabled their belief in the possibility of a man-goat. In Nigeria (since I cannot speak for other African countries) these things are not so strange. At least they should not be. After all this same media had recently reported the case of former chairman of a national corporation, a US educated gentleman, who had burnt millions of naira in the darkness of a cemetery ,on the order of a witch doctor, to secure favour of the politicians. And less than one hour drive to the west from the town where the incident of the goat took place, an Islamic cleric had once claimed he was drafted to ritually bury live cows to ensure victory for the immediate past president at the polls. It was also reported in the media, though the machinery of the state quickly ensured the report was not widespread.
A few weeks ago, in his Talakwa Liberation Courier series in The Guardian on Sunday, Prof. Biodun Jeyifo came up with a rather cheeky title for his Sunday column, ‘The God of Suddenly’. That essay details the extent to which the promise of miracle by the modern time church leaders on the one hand and the expectation of it by the church goers on the other hand, defined the religious temper in today’s Nigeria and consequently the growth of the church. To ensure the growth of the church, the pastors must be capable of performing miracles, so they in turn have been known to have resorted to witch craft, sorcery, and necromancy and so on to keep it real. See? our realities are seriously mediated like that, in such commingling of existences.
Now, Teju Cole poses the question I am driving at: how do you know what you know? He draws instances from urban legends like UFOs, to Kafka’s Samsa to Ovid’s Metamorphoses. I know I will have made a spatio-temporal mis analogy by saying this, but I still will that theological explanations can be found in the bible to explain the Ilorin’s incident: Devil-Snake in Eden, King-beast Nebukadenezeer(how do you spell it?), and the epiphanic horse that spoke on sighting an Angel. We, with our education, will believe these ancient, unbelievable stories because they are part of the sacred collection, but we will be too embarrassed to admit the complex terrains of our cultural realities. Much as we would wish to banish it, polytheism is not entirely dead in Africa (well Nigeria), and it is this possibility of alter-‘native’ realities and existences that those police men who detained the unusual suspect recognized before the media’s klieg lights forced on them a dialogue of denial.
I had imagined that the police would be momentarily confused beyond action: What to do with this piece of fetish? What to do with this suspect-man-goat? Reports. Consultations. More consultations. The goat was caught in the act, wasn’t he? He is the suspect! Shock. Disbelief. Outrage. But that was not what happened evidently. The goat was taken into custody, ‘understandingly’, some one said, and the media blitz that followed nearly blinded the force.
In the thick of the media outrage,however, the apparently embarrassed police issued a statement reminding us that the suspect had been arrested by other people, the men of the vigilante group, who dragged it to the police station and then informed the media. Unless we accuse this local vigilante group of following their own hidden agenda or better still conniving with the police to introduce a metaphysical dimension to the case of attempted theft in order to hamper justice, the explanation of the police must suffice. Although what to do about the goat is another matter.
But some police reforms activists were already bemoaning the low level of education among the police according to BBC News online which cited more sources to corroborate this factor of ignorance. It would make sense. Otherwise which ‘enlightened’ national police will arrest a goat as suspect of car theft? What educated mind will accuse a goat of witchcraft? Thanks to efforts of people like Teju Cole (Next on Sunday, Feb 15) who have been able to situate the story in context of representations, of reproduction and reception of knowledge. Thanks, because a whole lot of more ‘educated Nigerians’ have been going about calling the policemen shameless and illiterate, without pausing a bit to consider the possible contradiction in their argument ,without first rummaging in their own bag of received norms.
My point is simple: If these policemen had had PhDs in, say, criminology, would they have been more discerning to the absurdity of the suspect goat? Would their cultural background have prepared them to respond with reflection rather than reflex? I do not think so. Because reflection would have meant turning away from the absurdity of the case, while their cultural reflex enabled their belief in the possibility of a man-goat. In Nigeria (since I cannot speak for other African countries) these things are not so strange. At least they should not be. After all this same media had recently reported the case of former chairman of a national corporation, a US educated gentleman, who had burnt millions of naira in the darkness of a cemetery ,on the order of a witch doctor, to secure favour of the politicians. And less than one hour drive to the west from the town where the incident of the goat took place, an Islamic cleric had once claimed he was drafted to ritually bury live cows to ensure victory for the immediate past president at the polls. It was also reported in the media, though the machinery of the state quickly ensured the report was not widespread.
A few weeks ago, in his Talakwa Liberation Courier series in The Guardian on Sunday, Prof. Biodun Jeyifo came up with a rather cheeky title for his Sunday column, ‘The God of Suddenly’. That essay details the extent to which the promise of miracle by the modern time church leaders on the one hand and the expectation of it by the church goers on the other hand, defined the religious temper in today’s Nigeria and consequently the growth of the church. To ensure the growth of the church, the pastors must be capable of performing miracles, so they in turn have been known to have resorted to witch craft, sorcery, and necromancy and so on to keep it real. See? our realities are seriously mediated like that, in such commingling of existences.
Now, Teju Cole poses the question I am driving at: how do you know what you know? He draws instances from urban legends like UFOs, to Kafka’s Samsa to Ovid’s Metamorphoses. I know I will have made a spatio-temporal mis analogy by saying this, but I still will that theological explanations can be found in the bible to explain the Ilorin’s incident: Devil-Snake in Eden, King-beast Nebukadenezeer(how do you spell it?), and the epiphanic horse that spoke on sighting an Angel. We, with our education, will believe these ancient, unbelievable stories because they are part of the sacred collection, but we will be too embarrassed to admit the complex terrains of our cultural realities. Much as we would wish to banish it, polytheism is not entirely dead in Africa (well Nigeria), and it is this possibility of alter-‘native’ realities and existences that those police men who detained the unusual suspect recognized before the media’s klieg lights forced on them a dialogue of denial.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
For Duro Ladipo, For Marilyn Monroe
I recently got a copy of a book,Duro Ladipo-Thunder–God on Stage, written by two of my former teachers in the university, Drs. Remi Raji and Sola Olorunyomi in collaboration with Abiodun-Duro Ladipo, Ladipo's wife. The book is like a source book on Duro Ladipo, the Nigerian legendary theatre god and cultural nationalist per excellence, who died in 1978. Even some of us who did not have the privilege of watching Duro Ladipo perform on stage got to know about this remarkable man through marvelous stories all over the place about his earthly exploits in Yoruba theatre and culture. How he was taller than every one, how he spat fire from his mouth ala Sango. Ladipo, whose enactment of Sango persona almost became his own essence, assumed a dimension of the mythic in our imagination. This book has helped illuminate our knowledge of the man of ‘Bode Wasinmi’.
Shortly after I finished reading that remarkable book, and by some strange coincidence, I stumbled on Vanity Fair’s October 2008 edition with a cover story on Marilyn Monroe’s documented life. Now, while I am not trying to draw some non-existent links between Ladipo’s and Marilyn Monroe’s lives, what I see in both stories are two remarkable people who by stroke of sheer determination honed their extraordinary talent against odds and ended up capturing the public imagination beyond their times.
Monroe would be the first modern goddess of popular culture (in the international sense of it) and despite the razzmatazz of her extravagant lifestyle, the stereotyping of the ‘beautiful but brainless blonde’ she has been identified as an actress of immense talent and a very profound individual. She was as much goddess of the divine as of the profane. After her death, she becomes a martyred saint. Hollywood tried to replicate Marilyn in other actresses without success. She defined her epoch like nobody else as indicated in Doctorow’s novel about that period in history, Rag Time. Miss Monroe's life and art enabled a vast cult follower ship.
I think if cultures and geographies were swapped, a western Ladipo would have become an extraordinary legend, a religious experience. But then a Ladipo, the Sango initiate, who evidently took the metaphysics of theatre ritual beyond artifice of conventional stage craft, would not be possible. Ladipo was no Houdini, he was true to his art,he lived his art.He and his theatre group mesmerised any audiences that were privileged to witness them perform and their performances always got good reviews any where in the world they went.So magnetic also was the beauty and grace of Marilyn's performances on screen.
Ladipo’s spirit ‘departed into the loft’ amidst a thunderous hails of lightning, (a befitting departure for some one’s whose demiurge is the Thunder god himself) in 1978, while Marilyn Monroe died of overdose in 1962.One wonders how many generations it would take their stories to be historically unrecognizable, to pass into the realm of legend . The inconsistencies have already set in and this, i believe, is why the the 'archival narratives' of the authors of Duro Ladipo and Sam Kashner’s collaboration with photographer, Mark Anderson in Vanity Fair, are needed to focus us on not only the legendary but the factual in our rememory .
Shortly after I finished reading that remarkable book, and by some strange coincidence, I stumbled on Vanity Fair’s October 2008 edition with a cover story on Marilyn Monroe’s documented life. Now, while I am not trying to draw some non-existent links between Ladipo’s and Marilyn Monroe’s lives, what I see in both stories are two remarkable people who by stroke of sheer determination honed their extraordinary talent against odds and ended up capturing the public imagination beyond their times.
Monroe would be the first modern goddess of popular culture (in the international sense of it) and despite the razzmatazz of her extravagant lifestyle, the stereotyping of the ‘beautiful but brainless blonde’ she has been identified as an actress of immense talent and a very profound individual. She was as much goddess of the divine as of the profane. After her death, she becomes a martyred saint. Hollywood tried to replicate Marilyn in other actresses without success. She defined her epoch like nobody else as indicated in Doctorow’s novel about that period in history, Rag Time. Miss Monroe's life and art enabled a vast cult follower ship.
I think if cultures and geographies were swapped, a western Ladipo would have become an extraordinary legend, a religious experience. But then a Ladipo, the Sango initiate, who evidently took the metaphysics of theatre ritual beyond artifice of conventional stage craft, would not be possible. Ladipo was no Houdini, he was true to his art,he lived his art.He and his theatre group mesmerised any audiences that were privileged to witness them perform and their performances always got good reviews any where in the world they went.So magnetic also was the beauty and grace of Marilyn's performances on screen.
Ladipo’s spirit ‘departed into the loft’ amidst a thunderous hails of lightning, (a befitting departure for some one’s whose demiurge is the Thunder god himself) in 1978, while Marilyn Monroe died of overdose in 1962.One wonders how many generations it would take their stories to be historically unrecognizable, to pass into the realm of legend . The inconsistencies have already set in and this, i believe, is why the the 'archival narratives' of the authors of Duro Ladipo and Sam Kashner’s collaboration with photographer, Mark Anderson in Vanity Fair, are needed to focus us on not only the legendary but the factual in our rememory .
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Onyeka Nwelue's debut novel The Abyssinian Boy has been launched.Every body should get a copy for the simple reason that it is Onyeka's book.For those who don't know him,he was born in 1988!A lot of other people -like me- know him through his online presences.His determination is rivaled only by his ambition.Nnorom Azunoye in the latest edition of Sentinel Poetry online has fondly described him as 'irritatingly ambitious'. You can also read an interview he granted a fellow blogger Osondu here .That was Onyeka at the launch.The photo is from his blog
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