CHAPTER 48 : THE SEMANTICS OF HIGHLIFE MUSIC IN NIGERIA: A STUDY OF “FUNNY FUNNY IDENTITY” BY OLIVER DE COQUE

Alexander Walsh Erhiegueke, Matthew Ikenna Okos, Chinyere Celestina Esimone (PhD)

Abstract


Numerous works have been done by academics on the study of acculturation and its effect on cultures. The study of indigenous musicians who have helped at different times in sustaining Nigerian music of different types has received numerous scholarly attention. There however remains a great deal of work still to be done, especially on the works of great renowned Nigerian highlife musicians. This work is geared towards analyzing Nigerian highlife songs. Although there are many components of Nigerian highlife songs like the lyrics, instruments and instrumentation, the harmony employed, costumes, etc, this study is focused on bringing to the knowledge of the general public, the meanings of the lyrics of Nigerian highlife music “funny funny identity”, as performed by the Artiste Oliver De Coque, one of the famous Nigerian highlife musicians. It was observed that “funny funny identity” as used by Oliver de Coque depicts the dayto-day experiences, events and occurrences a common man could possibly face. To him, those experiences could be funny in retrospect.

Keywords: Highlife, Semantics, Music, Funny Funny Identity, Oliver De Coque.


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