Stephen Toyin Ogundipe

This study examines how Olanrewaju Adepoju, a modern Yoruba poet, exemplifies a critical deployment of hybridity in his poetry by fusing indigenous Yoruba and Islamic traditions. Despite being the most widely known poet in Yoruba, Adepoju's poetry has not attracted comprehensive study. His influence is, however, more far-reaching than his apparent neglect might suggest. While numerous broad studies generally characterize ewi genre, this work aims at a comprehensive investigation of Adepoju’s oeuvre with a view to characterizing it, underscoring its uniqueness, and accounting for the development of his poetic idiom. The study draws on 79 recorded audio performances of the poet as its primary data and applies qualitative methods in determining relevant poems for its analysis. It clarifies the sense in which various sub-genres of Yoruba poetry that Adepoju adapts manifest the hybrid constitution of his poetics.

This project appraises the tension between the ideal of the Islamic tradition and the commodification of Islamic music in southwestern Nigeria. In the past one decade, Islamic music in this context has experienced dramatic increase in patronage and audience expansion beyond its traditional boundary. This popularity emerged because the entanglement of Christian gospel tunes, hip-hop sound and the re-rendering of indigenous folksongs have become a salient public presence in Islamic music in southwestern Nigeria in recent years. The monograph anticipates the new development as re-articulating a transformation in the social constitution of Islam in southwestern Nigeria.