EMERGING ISSUES IN AFRICAN MUSIC ACADEMIA: THE NIGERIAN EXPERIENCE

Abstract

Music is germane to the life of Africans, such that every social activity in their lives is accompanied by some kind of music. Many theses have been written on the subject of parental prejudice to the formal study of music in African society. The belief was that the average parent cannot conjecture that a child will go to school to study an art which principally exists and is practiced by rote learning and oral tradition. The introduction of Western Music Education has changed all that. Issues have arisen and have been tackled by scholars of past and present generations. This paper is an overview of what the writer considers issues emanating in the new millennium (2000 – 2016). The participant observatorymethod based on empiricism as an active player in the music academia was used, using the Nigerian music academia as case study. Issues were identified, solutions were proffered, projections and possible solutions were suggested towards making the African music academia better. The writer identified eight plagues that could jeopardize the growth of the music academia in Nigeria in the new millennium if treated with kids’ glove. Ironically, most of the plagues identified are more intrinsic than extrinsic to the corpus of music academia in Nigeria. We must look at ourselves more closely before laying blames on non-music scholars. Below are some issues of concern