In this article, I trace the history and examine the role of gbokos (commercial indigenised wind band formation) in nurturing the jazz sensibilities of members while contributing to the broader social fabric in Lagos State, Nigeria. I employ the method of collaborative autoethnography to construct this account, drawing on the experience I share with five other musicians with roots in the tradition to develop a narrative on gbokos which spans three decades (1978 to 2008). Furthermore, the article engages the respectability discourse as a point of departure into the concept of Omol & uacute;& agrave;b & iacute; (a Yor & ugrave;b & aacute; morality code) and how gbokos musicians negotiated this in cosmopolitan Lagos. More broadly, the article highlights a typical lived reality among gbokos musicians. The study found that although many conservative middle-class Christians are ambivalent towards gbokos, it supports burgeoning musicians. They derive social capital, foundational highlife, and jazz education through the peer-to-peer exchange of knowledge and musical materials, as well as economic benefits from the formation. Gbokos has thus become foundational to many thriving performance careers. The formation will better fulfil its role of raising musicians while contributing to the broader social fabric through an improved structure and (governmental and corporate) sponsorship. In turn, gbokos is potentially resourceful as a cultural hub for the government of Lagos State.

This paper discusses my experience of migration, exploring the impact of precarity stemming from migrant status on creative choices within the Cape Town music scene. Employing the method of artistic autoethnography, the paper narrates my intra-African migratory and cultural displacement experience, centering on The Jo Kunnuji Experiment, a band I have led for over a decade. The analysis reveals the role of strategic essentialism as a survival mechanism in navigating the politics of discomfort and ultimately carving a distinctive creative niche. Music as a phenomenon for negotiating survival (a social action) thus highlights the economic decisions inherent in the creative process.

Before colonialism, Gbe women enjoyed a social status on par with men. However, there has been a shift in the postcolonial social structure of Gbe societies. Modern capitalism, which accompanied colonial structures, privileged men, eroding many woman-empowering practices. This article examines Ogu women's marginality through an ethnographic study of gangbe (a musical genre exclusive to married Ogu women). I argue that the sources of Ogu women's marginality are interlocking, involving oppression stemming from colonial structures and the values of contiguous Yoruba people. I propose a collaborative intervention that upends typical power structures that privilege Western and Yoruba ideation over Indigenous Ogu knowledge, values, and practices.

Whereas writings on African melodies have addressed their structures, shapes and forms, the way characteristic traits such as cadential practices aid to nuance the musics of different ethnolinguistic groups remains largely undocumented. Relying on Ogu songs, this article argues that there are group-specific stylistic practices that nuance the melodies of West African peoples. It examines ten songs selected from bands in Badagry (Lagos State, Nigeria), in the public domain, and the work of two iconic Ogu musicians from the Republic of Benin. The analyses reveal that Ogu melodies often display two important focal tones that share different aspects of 'tonic function' between them: an important tonal centre, and the primary resting note which assumes the status of a concluding tone at cadences. This and other stylistic characteristics and conventions could signal Ogu sensibilities in songs. These findings engage and extend previous descriptions of West African melodies by Kubik (1968), Ekwueme (1980), Kwami (1992) and Agawu (2016). The article concludes that there is a need to devote attention to the specifics of all musical practices in Africa, since artistic nuances on the continent could be glossed over when focusing only on regionally dominant practices.

This article discusses reciprocity in research as engaged scholarship and, more specifically, applied ethnomusicology. It draws on two ethnographic studies and their associated activism in Cape Town, South Africa and Lagos, Nigeria. The article investigates the histories of engaged scholarship and applied ethnomusicology and suggests that each community requires a method of engagement based on its contextual specifics. Hence, the case studies may be seen to animate workable approaches in different socio-cultural contexts. The paper concludes that these methods may serve as frameworks for developing site-specific strategies of engaged scholarship in other parts of Africa.

(2020). Musical responses from lockdown: adaptations in foregrounding remote performances in Lagos, Nigeria. Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa: Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 141-144.

At the Congress of Berlin (1884–85), the colonial governments created and imposed boundaries on the people of the continent, thereby fragmenting, for example, Gbe ethnolinguistic groups into different west-African countries, under the administrations of Britain, France and Germany. The Badagry-Ogu ethnic group, being the only Gbe ethnolinguistic group in Nigeria, which was colonised by the British government, was marginalized due to its positionality. Badagry-Ogu musical practices experienced the same situation and they have consistently waned over the years. These days, due to the effects of a postcolonial modernity in Lagos the indigenous is perceived as inferior, resulting in the condescending attitude of Badagry-Ogu youth towards their heritage. This paper describes the process of creating an experimental musical style, which syncretises Badagry-Ogu music and American jazz. This process involves the collection of music, engagement with performers, analysis and arranging of music and music making, with the thought of revitalising the interest of the youth trained in western music to engage more with their heritage, while making Ogu music more widely accessible in the global context. Supporting the argument for composition as a living archive, this paper features a new approach to musical conservation in Badagry Lagos.

Title: Tony Allen: An Autobiography of the Master Drummer of Afrobeat Publisher: Duke University Press. Publication year: 2013 ISBN 978-0-8223-5591-5