ABSTRACT

Today, differences in popular music genres and practices can be attributed to different peoples and cultures of the world in much the same sense as the shared and varied degrees of personality cult traditions. In this respect, Nigeria ranks amongst others with a unique and demonstrable popular music and personality cult culture. Of the available literature, none addresses the relationship between popular music and personality cult in Nigeria. This article is the first to do so. Here, we go beyond a mere analysis of the attributes of an idolised persona in, say, Naira Marley to examining both the ideological and sociological determinants––of literacy, media representation, social class, musical taste, deviancy, and demographic differences––that broadly support Nigerian popular music and personality cult practices. Through synthesising various views of the concept of personality cult with quasi-ethnographic data from some devotees of the Marlian cult, this article provides a critical intervention into how such activities as listening, imitating, and idolising are constructed forms of hero-worship in the Nigerian pop music scene.

摘要

今天，流行音乐流派和实践的差异可以归因于世界上不同的民族和文化，这与共享和不同程度的个人崇拜传统的意义大致相同。在这方面，尼日利亚以独特而明显的流行音乐和个人崇拜文化在其他国家中名列前茅。在现有的文献中，没有一篇涉及尼日利亚流行音乐与个人崇拜之间的关系。本文是第一个这样做的。在这里，我们超越了仅仅分析一个偶像化角色的属性，比如说，奈拉·马利（Naira Marley），研究意识形态和社会学的决定因素——读写能力、媒体表现、社会阶层、音乐品味、偏差和人口差异——广泛支持尼日利亚流行音乐和个人崇拜实践。