ECOMUSICOLOGY, INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION IN IBADAN, NIGERIA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21504/amj.v11i1.2293Keywords:
Flood, Disaster, Ecomusicology, Environmental degradation, Popular music, IbadanAbstract
Research on Yoruba popular music has tended to draw attention to its interest in romance and the accumulation of wealth. Inadequate attention has been paid to its engagement with the environment. Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State in Nigeria has witnessed perennial flood disasters, and this has been a concern of Yoruba musicians. This article is an ethnographic investigation of the place of music in the flood disasters of Ibadan as addressed in the songs of Yoruba musicians, Kollinton Ayinla, Foyeke Ajangila, Ebenezer Obey and Agbada Owo. The article describes the connections between the cultural past, when indigenous knowledge was respected and flooding was avoided, and the present, when it was forgotten, and flooding became a constant. Based on the very specific, local context of Ibadan, I argue that calls for the return of indigenous knowledge as propagated in popular music could be a way forward in environmental crises currently experienced around the globe.
References
Ajala, Aderemi Suileman 2011 “Space, Identity and Health Risks: A Study of Domestic Wastes in Ibadan, Nigeria.” Health, Culture and Society 1 (1): 1-21.
Allen, Aaron S. 2011 “Ecomusicology: Ecocriticism and Musicology.” Journal of the American Musicology Society 64 (2): 391-393.
Allen, Aaron S. and Dawe, Kevin 2016 “Ecomusicologies.” In Current Directions in Ecomusicology: Music, Culture and Nature. Allen, Aaron S. and Kevin Dawe, eds. 1-16. New York: Routledge.
Areola,Ola and Akinola, F. O. 1980 “Managing the Urban Environment in a Developing Country: The Ogunpa River Channelization Scheme in Ibadan City, Nigeria.” Environment International 3: 237-241.
Canson, Patricia E. 2017 “Yemonja.” Encyclopædia Britannica:https://www.britannica.com/topic/ Yemonja [Accessed on 23 March 2019].
DeNora, Tia 2004 Music in Everyday Life. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Dirksen, Rebecca 2019 “Haiti, Singing for the Land, Sea, and Sky: Cultivating Ecological Metaphysics and Environmental Awareness through Music.” MUSICultures 45 (1-2): 112-135.
Douglas E. Thomas 2015 African Traditional Religion in the Modern World, 2nd Edition. Jefferson, USA: Mcfarland and Company.
Eze-Uzomaka, Pamela and Oloidi, John Akintunde 2017 “Modernization and its Effect on Cultural Heritage in South Western Nigeria.” International Association of African Researchers and Reviewers 6 (2): 81-93.
Feld, Steven 2012 Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression, 3rd Edition. Durham: Duke University Press.
Folarin, Agbo 1993 Maternal Goddess in Yoruba Art: A New Aesthetic Acclamation of Yemoja, Oshun and Iya-Mapo. Evanston, IL: Programme of African Studies, Northwestern University no. 6: 7-8.
Guy, Nancy 2009 “Flowing Down Taiwan’s Tamsie River: Towards an Ecomusicology of the Environmental Imagination.” Ethnomusicology 53 (2): 218-248.
Gray, John 2000 False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism. New York: The New Press.
Idowu, Bolaji E. 1982 African Traditional Religion: A Definition. London: SCM Press.
Impey, Angela 2008 “Sound Memory and Dis/placement: Exploring Sound, Song and Performance as Oral History in the Southern African Borderlands”. Oral History Journal 36 (1): 33-44.
Impey, Angela 2013 “Songs of Mobility and Belonging.” Intervention: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 15 (2): 255-271.
Mabogunje, Akin Ladipo 1980 The Development Process: A Spatial Perspective. London: Unwin Harman Ltd.
Ogungbile, David 2001 “Eerindinlogun: The Seeing Eyes of Sacred Shells and Stones.” In Osun across the Waters: A Yoruba Goddess in Africa and the Americas, M. Sanford and J. M. Murphy, eds. 189–212. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Ogunleye, Adetunbi Richard 2015 “Cultural Identity in the throes of Modernity: An Appraisal of Yemoja among the Yoruba in Nigeria.” Inkanyiso Journal of Humanity and Social Sciences 7 (1):60-68.
Olajubu, Oyeronke 2003 Women in the Yoruba Religious Sphere. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Omoleke, Ishaq Isola 2004 “Management of Environmental Pollution in Ibadan, An African City: The Challenges of Health Hazards Facing Government and the People.” Journal of Human Ecology 15 (4): 265-275.
Osunyemi, Olu 2016 “Nov.15th Yemoja Festival: The Celebration of the ‘Mother’ of Mankind.” Nigeria Tribune. http://www.tribuneonlineng.com/yemoja-festivalcelebration- mother-mankind/ [Accessed on 19 March 2019].
Pedelty, Mark 2012 Ecomusicology: Rock, Folk and the Environment. Philadelphia,USA: Temple University Press. 2013 “Ecomusicology, Music studies, and IASPM: Beyond Epistemic Inertia.” International Association for the Study of Popular Music Journal 3 (2): 33-47.
Pedelty, Mark 2016 A song to Save the Salish Sea: Musical Performance as Environmental Activism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Rehding, Alexander 2011 “Ecomusicology: Between Apocalypse and Nostalgia.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 64 (2): 409-414.
Ramnarine, Tina K. 2009 “Acoustemology, Indigeneity, and Joik in Valkeapaa’s Symphonic Activism: Views from Europe’s Arctic Fringes for Environmental Ethnomusicology.” Ethnomusicology 53 (2): 187-217.
Rees, Helen 2016 “Environmental Crisis, Culture Loss, and a New Musical Aesthetics: China’s ‘Original Ecology Folksongs’ in Theory and Practice.” Ethnomusicology 60 (1): 53-88.
Seeger, Anthony 2016 “Natural Species, Sounds and Humans in Lowland South America: The Kisedje/Suya, Their World and the Nature of Their Musical Experience.” In Current Directions in Ecomusicology: Music, Culture and Nature. Allen, Aaron S. and Dawe, Kevin, eds. 89-98. New York: Routledge.
Simmoneth, Helena 2016 “Of Human and Non-Human Birds: Indigenous Music Making and Sentient Ecology in North Western Mexico.” In Current Directions in Ecomusicology: Music, Culture and Nature. Allen, Aaron S. and Dawe, Kevin, eds. 99-121. New York: Routledge.
Silver, Michael B. 2015 “Birdsong and a Song about a Bird: Popular Music and the Mediation of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Northeastern Brazil.” Journal of the Society for Ethnomusicology 59 (3): 380-397.
Silver, Michael B. 2018 Voices of Drought: Politics of Music and Environment in Northeastern Brazil. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.
Taylor, Hollis 2011 “ ‘Composers’ Appropriation of Pied Butchered Bird Song: Henry Tate’s ‘Undersong of Australia’ Comes of Age.” The Journal of Music Research Online 1-28.
Tejuosho, O O. 2004 Assessment of Generation and Management of Hazardous Household Wastes in Selected Communities in Ibadan.” MPh Thesis, Ibadan: University of Ibadan.
The Holy Bible 2000 “The law on the environmental cleansing.” Deuteronomy 20: 14.
Titon, Jeff Todd 2013 “The Nature of Ecomusicology.” Música e Cultura: Revista da ABET 8 (1): 8-18.
Von Glahn, Denise 2003 The Sounds of Place: Music and the American Cultural Landscape. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Warren, Michel D. 1991 “Using Indigenous Knowledge in Agricultural Development: World Bank Discussion Paper No 127.” Washington, D. C.: documents.worldbank. org/curated/en/408731468740976906/Using-indigenous-knowledge-inagricultural- development [Accessed on 12 February 2016].
Wilson, John F. 1987 The Encyclopaedia of Religion Vol 10. M. Eliade, ed. London: Macmillan Publishing Company.
Discography
Agbada Owo 1980 Omi Màtún Yalé (LP, Olumo Records, ORPS 202). Lagos, Nigeria.
Ebenezer Obey 1982 Oro Ogunpa (Decca Records WAPS 488). Lagos, Nigeria.
Foyeke Ajangila 1980 ÒgùnpaYarí. (ORCLP 124, Olumo Record). Lagos, Nigeria.
Kollinton Ayinla 1980 Omiyale–Mekunu Njiya. (LP; Olumo Records ORPS 201), Lagos, Nigeria.
Personal communication with the Author
Abayomi, O. 3 August 2017, Ibadan Oyo State, Nigeria.
Adeyemi, A. 2 August 2017. Ibadan Oyo State, Nigeria.
Alaba, A. 3 July 2016, Ibadan Oyo State, Nigeria.
Akara, E. 3 May, 2016, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.
Interviews by Author Kollinton, Ayinla. Lagos, Nigeria, 23 June 2016. O
Ogundeji, Elijah. Ibadan, Nigeria, 23 February 2017.
Solanke, Jimi. Ile-Ife, Nigeria, 12 May 2017.
Allen, Aaron S. 2011 “Ecomusicology: Ecocriticism and Musicology.” Journal of the American Musicology Society 64 (2): 391-393.
Allen, Aaron S. and Dawe, Kevin 2016 “Ecomusicologies.” In Current Directions in Ecomusicology: Music, Culture and Nature. Allen, Aaron S. and Kevin Dawe, eds. 1-16. New York: Routledge.
Areola,Ola and Akinola, F. O. 1980 “Managing the Urban Environment in a Developing Country: The Ogunpa River Channelization Scheme in Ibadan City, Nigeria.” Environment International 3: 237-241.
Canson, Patricia E. 2017 “Yemonja.” Encyclopædia Britannica:https://www.britannica.com/topic/ Yemonja [Accessed on 23 March 2019].
DeNora, Tia 2004 Music in Everyday Life. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Dirksen, Rebecca 2019 “Haiti, Singing for the Land, Sea, and Sky: Cultivating Ecological Metaphysics and Environmental Awareness through Music.” MUSICultures 45 (1-2): 112-135.
Douglas E. Thomas 2015 African Traditional Religion in the Modern World, 2nd Edition. Jefferson, USA: Mcfarland and Company.
Eze-Uzomaka, Pamela and Oloidi, John Akintunde 2017 “Modernization and its Effect on Cultural Heritage in South Western Nigeria.” International Association of African Researchers and Reviewers 6 (2): 81-93.
Feld, Steven 2012 Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression, 3rd Edition. Durham: Duke University Press.
Folarin, Agbo 1993 Maternal Goddess in Yoruba Art: A New Aesthetic Acclamation of Yemoja, Oshun and Iya-Mapo. Evanston, IL: Programme of African Studies, Northwestern University no. 6: 7-8.
Guy, Nancy 2009 “Flowing Down Taiwan’s Tamsie River: Towards an Ecomusicology of the Environmental Imagination.” Ethnomusicology 53 (2): 218-248.
Gray, John 2000 False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism. New York: The New Press.
Idowu, Bolaji E. 1982 African Traditional Religion: A Definition. London: SCM Press.
Impey, Angela 2008 “Sound Memory and Dis/placement: Exploring Sound, Song and Performance as Oral History in the Southern African Borderlands”. Oral History Journal 36 (1): 33-44.
Impey, Angela 2013 “Songs of Mobility and Belonging.” Intervention: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 15 (2): 255-271.
Mabogunje, Akin Ladipo 1980 The Development Process: A Spatial Perspective. London: Unwin Harman Ltd.
Ogungbile, David 2001 “Eerindinlogun: The Seeing Eyes of Sacred Shells and Stones.” In Osun across the Waters: A Yoruba Goddess in Africa and the Americas, M. Sanford and J. M. Murphy, eds. 189–212. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Ogunleye, Adetunbi Richard 2015 “Cultural Identity in the throes of Modernity: An Appraisal of Yemoja among the Yoruba in Nigeria.” Inkanyiso Journal of Humanity and Social Sciences 7 (1):60-68.
Olajubu, Oyeronke 2003 Women in the Yoruba Religious Sphere. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Omoleke, Ishaq Isola 2004 “Management of Environmental Pollution in Ibadan, An African City: The Challenges of Health Hazards Facing Government and the People.” Journal of Human Ecology 15 (4): 265-275.
Osunyemi, Olu 2016 “Nov.15th Yemoja Festival: The Celebration of the ‘Mother’ of Mankind.” Nigeria Tribune. http://www.tribuneonlineng.com/yemoja-festivalcelebration- mother-mankind/ [Accessed on 19 March 2019].
Pedelty, Mark 2012 Ecomusicology: Rock, Folk and the Environment. Philadelphia,USA: Temple University Press. 2013 “Ecomusicology, Music studies, and IASPM: Beyond Epistemic Inertia.” International Association for the Study of Popular Music Journal 3 (2): 33-47.
Pedelty, Mark 2016 A song to Save the Salish Sea: Musical Performance as Environmental Activism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Rehding, Alexander 2011 “Ecomusicology: Between Apocalypse and Nostalgia.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 64 (2): 409-414.
Ramnarine, Tina K. 2009 “Acoustemology, Indigeneity, and Joik in Valkeapaa’s Symphonic Activism: Views from Europe’s Arctic Fringes for Environmental Ethnomusicology.” Ethnomusicology 53 (2): 187-217.
Rees, Helen 2016 “Environmental Crisis, Culture Loss, and a New Musical Aesthetics: China’s ‘Original Ecology Folksongs’ in Theory and Practice.” Ethnomusicology 60 (1): 53-88.
Seeger, Anthony 2016 “Natural Species, Sounds and Humans in Lowland South America: The Kisedje/Suya, Their World and the Nature of Their Musical Experience.” In Current Directions in Ecomusicology: Music, Culture and Nature. Allen, Aaron S. and Dawe, Kevin, eds. 89-98. New York: Routledge.
Simmoneth, Helena 2016 “Of Human and Non-Human Birds: Indigenous Music Making and Sentient Ecology in North Western Mexico.” In Current Directions in Ecomusicology: Music, Culture and Nature. Allen, Aaron S. and Dawe, Kevin, eds. 99-121. New York: Routledge.
Silver, Michael B. 2015 “Birdsong and a Song about a Bird: Popular Music and the Mediation of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Northeastern Brazil.” Journal of the Society for Ethnomusicology 59 (3): 380-397.
Silver, Michael B. 2018 Voices of Drought: Politics of Music and Environment in Northeastern Brazil. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.
Taylor, Hollis 2011 “ ‘Composers’ Appropriation of Pied Butchered Bird Song: Henry Tate’s ‘Undersong of Australia’ Comes of Age.” The Journal of Music Research Online 1-28.
Tejuosho, O O. 2004 Assessment of Generation and Management of Hazardous Household Wastes in Selected Communities in Ibadan.” MPh Thesis, Ibadan: University of Ibadan.
The Holy Bible 2000 “The law on the environmental cleansing.” Deuteronomy 20: 14.
Titon, Jeff Todd 2013 “The Nature of Ecomusicology.” Música e Cultura: Revista da ABET 8 (1): 8-18.
Von Glahn, Denise 2003 The Sounds of Place: Music and the American Cultural Landscape. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Warren, Michel D. 1991 “Using Indigenous Knowledge in Agricultural Development: World Bank Discussion Paper No 127.” Washington, D. C.: documents.worldbank. org/curated/en/408731468740976906/Using-indigenous-knowledge-inagricultural- development [Accessed on 12 February 2016].
Wilson, John F. 1987 The Encyclopaedia of Religion Vol 10. M. Eliade, ed. London: Macmillan Publishing Company.
Discography
Agbada Owo 1980 Omi Màtún Yalé (LP, Olumo Records, ORPS 202). Lagos, Nigeria.
Ebenezer Obey 1982 Oro Ogunpa (Decca Records WAPS 488). Lagos, Nigeria.
Foyeke Ajangila 1980 ÒgùnpaYarí. (ORCLP 124, Olumo Record). Lagos, Nigeria.
Kollinton Ayinla 1980 Omiyale–Mekunu Njiya. (LP; Olumo Records ORPS 201), Lagos, Nigeria.
Personal communication with the Author
Abayomi, O. 3 August 2017, Ibadan Oyo State, Nigeria.
Adeyemi, A. 2 August 2017. Ibadan Oyo State, Nigeria.
Alaba, A. 3 July 2016, Ibadan Oyo State, Nigeria.
Akara, E. 3 May, 2016, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.
Interviews by Author Kollinton, Ayinla. Lagos, Nigeria, 23 June 2016. O
Ogundeji, Elijah. Ibadan, Nigeria, 23 February 2017.
Solanke, Jimi. Ile-Ife, Nigeria, 12 May 2017.
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Published
2019-12-01
How to Cite
Titus, Olusegun Stephen. 2019. “ECOMUSICOLOGY, INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION IN IBADAN, NIGERIA”. African Music : Journal of the International Library of African Music 11 (1):72-90. https://doi.org/10.21504/amj.v11i1.2293.
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