HAUSA HIP-HOP SONGS: A NEW TREND FOR SURVIVAL AND PRESERVATION OF HAUSA LANGUAGE

Abstract

The study attempts to examine the transformation caused by technological innovation in Hausa hip-hop’s style, form, content and function as far as the Hausa poetry is concerned as well as the impacts, if any, made by Hausa hip-hop on the society. Data was collected from Arewa 24 H hip-hop programmes aired every Saturday at nine o’clock in the evening. The study used Hymes’s Ethnolinguistics approach and that of Modernists such as, T.S. Eliot and Walter Benjamin. Eliot’s method of Impersonality and Objective correlative were employed as analytical tools. On the other hand, Benjamin’s terms; Aura and Presence were also used to access the style of composition and performance in the new generation Hausa songs. Three songs composed by three singers were selected and analysed. The study revealed that technological innovations have changed aspects of traditional Hausa music and influenced the contexts of composition, performance and production. That the songs analysed were mostly performed in the form and style of Rapping with the ‘disk jockey’, while most of the contents were concerned with the socio-cultural, economic and political issues of Hausa society. The study also found that since Hausa hip-hop singers/songs are emotionally attached to the society; as they treat various themes that have direct bearing on people’s lives, perhaps, Hausa hip-hop is the survival recipe for the preservation of Hausa Language.