North-West University (NWU)'s Professor of Journalism, Communication and Media Studies, and Director of Indigenous Language Media in Africa, Prof. Abiodun Salawu and Dr Israel Fadipe, a postdoctoral fellow in ILMA recently released two volumes of their work on Indigenous African Popular music.  Titled, Indigenous African Popular music, Volume 1: Prophets and Philosophers and Indigenous African Popular Music, Volume 2: Social Crusades and the Future, the books illuminate the scholastic interest in indigenous African popular music.

The first volume unpacks the characters, philosophies and types of indigenous African popular music with the focus on how indigenous African famous music artists are seen as prophets and philosophers and how indigenous African popular music depicts the world. The second volume examines how African artists' indigenous popular music is deployed in democracy, politics and social crusades. It also explores the role of indigenous African popular music in environmental health communication and gender empowerment, subsequently focusing on how the music portrays the African future, its use by African youths, and how it is affected by advanced broadcast technologies and the digital media.

With a particular focus on scholarship from Nigeria, Zimbabwe and South Africa, the books  released by Palgrave Macmillan/Springer explore the work of these countries' ground-breaking artists and their protégés.

"These artists resiliently sustained, recreated and popularised indigenous popular music in their respective African communities, and at the same time, they propagated the communal views about African philosophies and the temporal and spiritual worlds in which they exist," says Prof Abiodun.

He further notes that indigenous African popular music has long been under-appreciated in communication scholarship.

"Understanding the nature and philosophies of indigenous African popular music is very important as it reveals an untapped diversity. This diversity can only be unravelled by knowledge of the myriad cultural backgrounds from which its genres originate. Indigenous African popular musicians have become repositories of indigenous cultural traditions and cosmologies," he explains.

Prof Abiodun is a Journalism, Communication and Media Studies Professor and Director of Indigenous Language Media in Africa at the North-West University, South Africa. His major research areas include indigenous language media, development communication, critical studies and new media.

Dr Israel is a postdoctoral fellow in Indigenous Language Media in Africa at the Faculty of Humanities, North-West University, South Africa. He specialises in communication, cultural and gender studies and has published articles and chapters in local and international journals.

Prof Abiodun Salawu