No abstract

Hip hop music has enjoyed global popularity and patronage on a level that has transcended that of most other music genres. It is perhaps due to the genre's worldwide popularity that many forms of hip hop have sprung up across the globe. The Nigerian version of the music has been overwhelmingly accepted by a good number of youths in the country irrespective of class, religion and social status. However, there is some speculation as to what factors are responsible for the recent sudden boom in the popular consumption of this genre among the youth, since hip hop has been a feature of the Nigerian musical landscape since the 1980s. With the aid of qualitative data collection instruments – thirty in-depth interviews and six key informant interviews among hip hop fans and club DJs, respectively – the study establishes the centrality of multilingualism as a primary reason for the acceptance of hip hop among Nigerian youth.

The purpose of this article is to examine whether the normative expectations among masons has positive or negative influence on young people’s interest in masonry. The norms and values a vocation’s practitioners operate with may affect the appeal of the vocation to new and potential apprentices. Yet, whether or not a vocation continues to survive depend on how successful its norms and values order expectations of different categories of people in its fold. Data were derived from interviews and focused discussions among 30 masons and 16 apprentices. The results show that normative relations between masons and apprentices increase apprentices’ anxiety. There are indications that apprentices find challenging some of the conventions that dictate the process of training. Whereas master masons feel less concern about traditional expectations on apprentices, many apprentices believe that some aspects of informal apprenticeship training process emphasize disturbing social and economic interaction with attendant disinterestedness among apprentices.

This article focuses on the higher education system as an object of developmental analysis by examining the challenges and prospects of decolonizing the knowledge base of higher education systems across the Continent of Africa. The purpose of the article is to show that African countries’ seeming lack of progress relates to the character of her education system, which is deeply rooted in the context of coloniality and ‘metacolonialism.’ Using an analogical approach, the article discusses the attachment problem, which forms the pedestal for the continued undermining of indigenous knowledge as the basis of the pursuit of developmental goals. Universities in Africa have developed several kinds of attachments to and have been uncritical of received knowledge from the Western societies through their colonial roots. What African societies need at this moment is a knowledge system that integrates with the existential realities of African students and intellectuals.