Abstract

Scholars in media and democracy on popular cultures have established the importance of popular music in human society, most especially for political communication. Though popular music scholars have established the unifying influence of both Juju and Fuji popular music genres among the Yoruba, Nigeria, not much has been done on the capability of Apala and Fuji music genres for political communication. Adopting agenda setting and media development theories, this study investigated the political communication issues, level of prominence given to political communication by the two genres and the song that gives more prominence to political communication in selected songs of Ayinla Omowura, Haruna Ishola, Wasiu Ayinde and Sikiru Ayinde. Using content analysis technique, findings reveal unity/integration, leadership quality, human rights, thuggery, election/civic duties, praise-singing leaders, socio-economic situation, military government and lamentation as political issues. Apala music genre gave more prominence to political discourse than the Fuji music genre in the selected tracks, while Eyin Oseluwa by Ayinla Omowura, gave more prominence to democratic issues. The study concludes that  popular music can be used by artistes to discuss salient issues in the society and that it has the tendency to aid development and national integration, or work against it.

Key Words: Political Communication, Indigenous Popular Music, Democracy, Apala and Fuji

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*Israel Ayinla Fadipe is of the Department of Communication and Language Arts, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.

^JCMRJournal of Communication and Media Research, Vol. 8, No. 1, Sp. 1, May 2016, 185 – 198