THE IMPERIALIST ORIGIN OF BIAS TOWARDS THE INTEGRITY OF TRADITIONAL MUSIC IN AFRICA

Ibekwe Eunice

Abstract


After many years of colonial emancipation, the greater percentage of Africans is yet to realize and defend their identities. Worse still, some African intellectuals whose psyches have been leached, whitewashed or dominated by imperial ideologies have failed to see reasons why traditional practices should be or exist. This negative impression is evident in their sharp/bold rejection and denial of anything cultural in every ramification – traditional music inclusive. This ugly phenomenon infringes on the efforts of concerned historians, ethnographers indigenous philosophers, technologists, musicologist and so on who saw western experimentation on the rich cultural values of our societies as rape of invaluable treasure. This paper seeks to defend the integrity of our traditional music by unraveling some of its immense benefits to societies at large and to debunk the negative concept already formed about our traditional music. This consequently culminates in the relegation of our musical art to the back seat and its practitioners infected with an inferiority complex.

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