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TRANSFORMING NIGERIAN HIP-HOP MUSIC AND DANCE FOR 

EDUCATIONAL, MORAL AND SOCIO-CULTURAL RELEVANCE 

 

Prisca O. Ajaero, Emmanuel C. Umezinwa Ph.D. &  

Alvan-Ikoku O. Nwamara Ph.D. 

 

Abstract 

ip-hop music and dance came into existence in the 1970‟s and 

believed to have sprung from the South Bronx of New York 

city, although, with a root traceable back to Africa. This genre 

of music and dance became popular in Nigeria especially among the 

youths around the late eighties and early nineties but was associated 

with so much profanity and vulgarity, thus creating for a disinterest 

and irrelevance as an area of academic pursuit and a possible avenue 

for curbing societal and moral decadence as well as boost the economy 

of the country. Through library research, interviews and observations, 

this work seeks to expose ways in which hip-hop music and dance can 

be re-organized, restructured and transformed to fit more into the 

moral, academic standards and socio-cultural interests of the Nigerian 

society. 

   

Introduction 

Hip-hop has evolved from being just a type of music and dance, into 

being a lifestyle especially among the youths. The word „hip‟ is believed 

to be used in referring to someone believed to be in „the know or 

current‟ while the latter „hop‟ is just used as the word implies, a 

hopping movement which was coined from a rapper with Grandmaster 

flash named Keith Cowboy, and the Furious Five who teased a friend 

who had just joined the U.S Army, by scat singing the words 

„hip/hop/hip/hop‟ in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of 

marching soldiers as stated by Nwamara (2011). Hip-hop music and 

H 

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dance can be said to have sprung up in the 1970‟s in the South Bronx 

of New York City, United States of America, although, with a 

traceable root back to Africa. By means of globalization and 

acculturation, Hip-hop has found its way into many countries and has 

been incorporated into the lifestyle of the people without 

significantly losing its qualities and essence. 

 

 This lifestyle crept into Nigeria around the late eighties and early 

nineties and was “Nigerianized” and nicknamed Naija hip-hop with its 

essential hip-hop qualities still intact, bringing about so much negative 

criticism as regards the constant and unapologetic usage and showcase 

of obscenity and vulgarity that accompanies this genre of music and 

dance, causing for a high rate of disapproval and disregard for it from 

the older ones in society and also a disinterest in its academic 

teaching and learning process. Nevertheless, irrespective of all these 

criticisms, hip-hop music and dance has kept on igniting interest among 

the youths and has proven to be employment generating for them by 

indulging their minds in some unique level of creativity and sense of 

self-reliability. So, there is a need for the recontextualization and 

restructuralization of our hip-hop music and dance for more 

acceptability and societal relevance as suggested by Adedeji (2010) in 

his transformative musicology theory which states that: 

…in order to meet contemporary social challenges there 
is the need to redefine the direction of art music in 
terms of functionality. This would imply recontextualizing 
it to address socio-political problems and serve as a 
vehicle for transformation while still retaining its artistic 
qualities. This is totally realistic since in its original 
aesthetic focus, art music carries textual or philosophical 
themes and contents which portray cultural norms, 
values, religious messages, nature, love. (p. 3-4).  

Igwe (2014) also examined contemporary popular music and 

dance as tools for social transformation, presenting the dance 

as important as the music. 

 



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Concept of Nigerian Hip-Hop Music and Dance  

Hip-hop music is believed to have come into Nigeria between the late 

80‟s and early 90‟s but there seems to have been no precise or 

definite documentation about the advent of this genre of music. Buchi 

Steve (2009) in Real Hip-hop Naija blog spot 

(realhiphopngblogspot.com) gave a brief history of the evolution of 

hip-hop in Nigeria to have taken place around the 1990s. Amos (2012) 

in his work entitled „History of Nigerian Hip-hop: A Tale of Three 
Decades,‟ he opined that in the last thirty years, hip-hop music has 

come to thrive and informed most of the developments in the Nigerian 

music. Hip-hop music first gained so much popularity and precedence 

in Lagos as Afro hip-hop among the youths as a safe haven for them 

away from the crisis, corruption and continuous outburst of problems 

and difficulties emanating in the country by ways of unemployment, 

currency depreciation, corruption and so on.  

 

This genre of music started being used by the youths to call out and 

express their disdain and disapproval to the high rate of corruption 

displayed by the leaders. So many groups and solo artistes like Junior 

&Pretty, Daniel 'Danny' Wilson, Plantashun Boiz, Remedies with 

members Eedris Abdulkareem, Eddy Remedy & Tony Tetula started 

taking recognitions during that period. Then the late 90s and the early 

years of the new millennial era saw an outpour from artists and 

groups, many returning home from the Western Diaspora, like Eldee 

da Don of Trybesmen, Madarocka and the S.O.U.R.C.E. Clik, Naeto C of 

W.F.A, and from Europe, JJC and the 419 squad; and P-Square (the 

duo of Peter & Paul Okoye) and most recently, the likes of Flavour, 

Davido, Phino, Olamide, Tiwa Savage, Wizkid, Teni, Burna boy etc, all 

becoming a part of the mainstream of Nigerian music after the 

collapse of pop trends like Yo-pop.  These Nigerian artistes started to 

localize hip hop and make songs in English and any other Nigerian 

language as a way of expressing themselves more, making Nigerian hip-

hop multilingual. 

 



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Hip-hop music as a genre cannot be talked about completely without 

the addition of rap music.  According to Akwaowo (2010), rap is one of 

the most prominent features, a major part and an inseparable element 

of hip-hop. The type of hip-hop is determined by the kind of rap style. 

There are 3 major types of rap style which are: the Conscious rap 
type which deals with the creation of awareness and imparting 

knowledge. It discourages the act of violence, discrimination, and 

other societal ailments and contains positive uplifting messages, the 
Battle rap type which stems from the quest to be competitive within 

the culture. Although, it is sometimes directed to an anonymous rival 

or used as a forum to sharpen one‟s lyrical swords, boastful lines and 

self-glorifying rhymes about one‟s proficiency or level of success, 

accompanied by verbal insults (beef lyrics) hulled at the other party 

directly or indirectly is mostly the underlying factor here and lastly, 

the Gangster rap type which reflects the violent lifestyles of inner-

city youths and revolves around aggressive lyrics and trunk heavy 

beats. These are the three rap styles found in hip-hop music. 

 

Hip-hop dance and its music are quite inseparable as they share a 

common history that dates back to the 1960‟s and 1970‟s. Dance being 

a great complement to music, is used to express the feeling of the 

singer/ artiste as it transcends beyond just bodily movements, but 

could be used to pass across information, tell a story and convey 

emotions as opined by Onwuekwe (2009), who stated that: 

Dance goes beyond the merely function movement of 
work or sport to become an experience that is 
pleasurable, exciting or aesthetically valuable. In doing 
so, it can also express emotions, moods, ideas, tell a story 
or portray political and social needs. (p.178)  

 

Dance can also be said to be a reflection of the society that owns it as 

people tend to explore their cultures using even artistic and socio-

historical materials in its creation and performance which gave rise to 

the statement made by Ojo (2003) that:   



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Dance is the language that expresses religious beliefs, 
political and historical experiences, social practices and 
economic peculiarities as well as the geographical location 
and biological temperament of the people that gives its 
birth. (p.1) 

The notion of dance being more than just a movement of the body but 

also a means of expression and more may have also prompted Ogene 

(2007) to state that: 

Dance is about the only art form that punctuates the 
cultural continuum of human diversity. It is the hyphen of 
experience, the comma of victory, the colon of defeat, 
the parenthesis of the family and the full stop of pain... 
Yet it is an art form most ephemeral of all. (p. 195) 

 

In the bid to express themselves more, artistes started creating 

accompanying dances, sometimes derived from their culture and 

relatable to society to further interprete the messages conveyed in 

their music and also entertain their listeners.  

 

Hip-hop dance is acknowledgeably, a quite stressful type of dance 

style and requires the utmost level of commitment, practice and 

undeniably, a great deal of strength for a proper execution and 

performance. It became popular in the 1970‟s in the USA after it was 

performed by the first professional street-based dance crews. Hip-

hop dance styles includes the popping and locking, the break dance 

(whose dancers were known as B-boys and B-girls and which spread 

was made possible by Rock Steady Crew, New York City Breakers, The 

Lockers, and The Electric Boogaloos respectively as they were the 

most influential hip-hop groups at that point in time), reject and 

jerking, hammer dance, hip-hop ballet, twerking, cripwalk and so on. 

While in Nigeria, in addition to the existence of the known and 

adapted hip-hop dance styles, some other “Nigerianized” dance 

styles/steps were formulated, creating for a fuller and more 

culturally balanced and interesting repertoire of dance styles. These 

indigenous dance styles include the makossa, alanta, etighi, dab dance, 



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alingo, suo dance, skelewu, sekem, shakiti bobo and more recently, the 

zanku (leg-work) dance style. Hip-hop dance in Nigeria just as its 

music, has also engaged people in creativity and as a money-generating 

venture. It has received a great height of recognition in this era and 

as so, requires scholarly and academic attention. 

  

Hip-hop Music/Dance and Moral Didactics  

Morality could be said to be a code or set of conducting principles set 

by a group, society, an organization or even an individual that concerns 

itself with the separation between what is right and wrong or what is 

good and bad. It can also be said to be the day to day practice of a 

group or an individual‟s view of what is perceived to be „good‟. The 

philosophy of what is „good‟ is quite different among people and the 

society at large due to religious, gender, cultural and even 

generational influences which most times, functions as a reality filter. 

 
Microsoft Encarta Dictionary (2007ed.) defined the word didactic as 

a means of teaching or having a moral message which tends to give 

advice or instructions, even as at when and when not needed. The word 

is derived from the Greek word “didaktus,” which means to „teach‟.  

 

A morally didactic song is one which messages tend to pass across 

information that teaches its listeners the distinction between good 

and bad and encourages them to always be upright and desist from the 

bad and evil things. This type of music is contained in our African 

repertoire of folk and didactic songs which are used in informing, 

instructing and educating an African child. This notion is supported by 

Agu (2011) who observed that the Igbo child “learns everything 

around him, the culture, history of the land, general knowledge, and 

moral instructions through songs. He also stated that, “one of the 

basic functions of Igbo folk music is that of moral education which 

concentrates on the moral obligations of the child to society”. The 

norms, ethics and values of a society are basically transmitted to 

members of the society through the texts of the songs used by them 

(Okunade 2011). Nwamara (2015) also stated that, folk music is 



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“indigenous and on its own part performs to an appreciable extent 

some educative (moral and cultural) roles, culture preservation roles 

as well as entertainment roles” (p.266). 

 

Unfortunately, hip-hop music in Nigeria has been predominantly 

profane and immoral in its lyrics, its dress sense and to the nature of 

most of its dance style as against the moral inclination of the society 

and its original purpose of creation which was basically to educate, 

inform and advocate for the common man against the ills of the 

society and corruption of our leaders through its themes and 

messages as seen in the songs of Eedris Abdulkareem and Tony 

Tettula. This notion was supported and emphasized by Nwamara (2011) 

who stated that, “one of the most important features of Hip-hop 

which distinguishes the musical genre and puts it in a class of its own 

as different from other genres is the song text.” He further stated 

that:  

Hip-hop singers are characteristically “praise singers of 
themselves”. They sing about their love, sex, affluence, 
beauty, class, outstanding performance, God‟s 
intervention and “upliftment”, hope for a promising 
future, good recording deal, popularity, attractiveness, 
etc. Others in wanting to be heard by other artistes 
(especially those considered as outstanding), sing songs 
to criticize them, known in the Nigerian Hip-hop parlance 
as “biff song”. Some sing to criticize the government, and 
the rich class who segregate while others sing to praise 
outstanding artistes in the field and their DJs. (p. 147-
148) 

 

Although, some hip-hop musicians in Nigeria have tried and succeeded 

in keeping their music free from profane words and sexual 

inclinations, so many others today, thrive in making themselves and 

their music a brand for the advocacy of gangsterism, violence, 

indecency and sexual immorality. The hip-hop dances are now created 

to be erotic in nature, with the female vixens/dancers dressed in so 



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little and very revealing attires because it is believed to be more 

marketable and in trend. Ekwueme (2001) is of the opinion that 

Nigerian composers should produce works to meet the Nigerian 

audience; to which I add that the songs need to be those that would 

be educative as well as morally sensitive and acceptable.  

 

Hence, there is the need for the adaptation of Adedeji”s (2010) 

transformative musicology theory in the creation and composition of 

hip-hop music. Hip-hop musicians need to start creating songs that are 

more educative and morally balanced in nature by recontextualizing 

their themes and making them free from profane languages and sexual 

attributes. This can also be achieved by employing the use of our 

indigenous didactic songs which are basically used for educating, 

correcting, teaching and informing the people. 

 

Educational and Socio-Cultural Relevance 

Culture could be said to be the values, customs and beliefs, arts and 

social organization that makes up the way of a life of a particular 

society, group or country. The sum up of these ways of life of a 

people, are most times passed from one generation to another as 

cultural heritage. It is believed that people are often times as 

indigenous as their culture, meaning that a person when brought up 

from childhood in the ways and dictates of his/her culture; finds it 

quite difficult to deviate from it. Music has always been an important 

aspect of our Nigerian culture which most times play an integral role 

in the inculcation of moral values in the early life and developmental 

stages of a child. The indigenous music of a people tends to bring 

them together in oneness and create a sort of inter-personal 

relationship amongst them. In a socio-cultural setting, music, 

especially when lacking some form of cultural inclinations and 

unwanted religious influences, creates the opportunity for Nigerians 

to communicate and interact freely within themselves at a particular 

point in time.  

 



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Hip-hop music and dance in its regard, has metamorphosed into being a 

culture of its own and has mostly affected the Nigerian youths in 

their craze and yearning for modernity and globalization. The effect 

of this could be seen in the DRESS SENSE (with sagging, wearing of 

torn trousers and rugged jeans, and the ladies putting on very little 

and revealing dresses all in the name of trend and fashion), 

CULTURAL PREFERENCES (this could be seen in the cultural choices 

of the Nigerian youth, who consider their own indigenous cultural 

practices as archaic but would rather go for the western cultural 

practices alternatively as could be seen mostly in their dress sense) 

DANCE STYLE (especially in our cultural dances, as they have been 

greatly adulterated in such a way that the influence of hip-hop could 

be seen in the dance style, steps and even mannerism when being 

performed by a youth) and LANGUAGE of those that are hip-hop 

compliant (with slangs, rap words and pidgin being the order of the 

day, thus, robbing some the ability of proper English speaking and 

even language mastery). 

 

Nevertheless, culturally speaking, hip-hop culture has proven not to be 

rigid or static as it tends to encourage cultural hybridity; where the 

foreign culture and even our indigenous culture assimilate each other 

thereby creating an existence for a modern culture that goes with the 

contemporary trends and also creating inter-social relationships 

between the different societies and states in the country.  

 

Educationally, hip-hop music and dance is not recognized as a 

necessary area of research or learning in higher institutions and as so, 

does not receive much academic attention or relevance, and this could 

possibly be due to its attribution to immoral and obscene 

characteristics today after drastically deviating from its main 

purpose of creation being to inform, educate and advocate for the 

masses. Music is perceived as educational, when it possesses the 

ability to give positively formative effect on the character, mind and 

physical ability of the listener. Nketia (1966) informed that music was 

a basis for educating the members of community and it serves as a 



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means of teaching the norms and values of society. The need for 

educational grounding in the art of hip-hop music and dance in Nigeria 

cannot be over-emphasized as education is the gateway to logical 

reasoning and sustainable provision to social and economic needs. 

Akumah (2004:202) also defined education “the process of discipline 

through training and study in the acquisition of skills and knowledge”.  

Education is also “the sum total of processes by means of which a 

social group or community, small or large transmits its acquired power 

and aims with a view to securing its continuous existence or growth” 

(Eya 2000:143), all of these qualities, our Nigerian hip-hop music 

today has proven to be devoid of and causing an abnormality in the 

system. 

 

However, with the inclusion and incorporation of hip-hop music and 

dance as an area of specialty and relevant research area in music 

studies, the output production of this genre of music would be 

manageable, curbing most of its obscene, vulgar and immoral 

tendencies or at least reducing it to its minimal, creating for a more 

educative and societally acceptable hip-hop works due to its high rate 

consumption, thus, giving this genre of music, the value it deserves.   

 

Conclusion and Recommendations 

Hip-hop music which was believed to have been originally created to 

educate, inform and advocate for the common man, has drastically 

deviated from that intention and has since then faced so much 

negative criticisms as to the immoral way of life it now champions and 

encourages today. The exhibition of violence, nudity, drug addiction 

and vulgar language has become the order of the day among its 

compliants (comprising mostly of youths), with the hip-hop dancers, 

especially the females, regarded as prostitutes due to their high level 

of nudity display and erotic dance styles. This genre of music and 

dance in its present state is believed to be of no good moral impact on 

Nigerian youths and society at large, causing it to receive little or no 

educational interest/relevance whatsoever.  

 



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However, despite its attribution to immoral values, hip-hop music and 

dance has been the most recognized and lucrative genre of music in 

Nigeria today, commanding a high rate of consumption and influence on 

Nigerian youths. So, it is imperative for this genre of music and dance 

to be given indepth educational study and relevance by music scholars, 

promoting the restructuring of the dance styles as well as 

recontextualizing its theme and message as suggested in Adedeji‟s 

(2010) transformative musicology agenda that champions the need for 

the recontextualization of musical compositions for societal 

transformation in Nigeria; and also Nwamara‟s (2011) support for the 

inclusion of more educative texts in hip-hop music in Nigeria. With 

music scholars delving more into the production of this genre of 

music, this would help in regulating the composition and production of 

hip-hop music, hence, curbing/ reducing to its very minimal the use of 

vulgarity and exhibition of immoral and profane lifestyle. This would 

create for a more meaningful, morally inclined, educative and 

societally acceptable hip-hop music production. 

 

It is also recommended that the censors‟ boards in Nigeria should do 

more in their duties of checkmating the hip-hop music works before 

disseminating to the public. Works with vulgar languages and nudity 

should be banned from being displayed or listened to, thus, bringing it 

to its barest minimum.  The government should also sponsor, 

encourage and promote cultural revival and export through hip-hop 

music and dance. Lastly, the Nigerian parents should give serious and 

adequate attention to the sort of training their children are given at 

home because the home is the most delicate formation ground and 

determining foundation for the future of a child.     

 

 References 

Adedeji, „F. (2010). Transformative musicology: Recontextualizing art 

music composition for societal transformation in Nigeria‟, in 

Revista Electronica de Musicologia, Vol. XIV, 

http://www.rem.ufpr.br/_REM/REMv14/09/transformative_mu

sicology.html 

http://www.rem.ufpr.br/_REM/REMv14/09/transformative_musicology.html
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