Reviving Oriki: Innovation, Commodification and Music Sustainability among Contemporary Chanters in Southwest Nigeria

This thesis examines the contemporary revival of traditional music through an ethnographic study of oríkì performance practice among chanters in Southwest Nigeria from the mid-2010s onward. Oríkì (Yoruba praise poetry) is a vocal art form that serves as a tool for affirming social, familial, and historical identities within Yoruba communities. While prior scholarship has often framed oríkì through distinctions such as traditional and modern, or oral and mediated, this study shows that oríkì’s contemporary resurgence operates through a complex interplay of reinvention, adaptive resilience, and a fluid negotiation of continuity and innovation. My thesis draws on multi-sited ethnographic approaches to music, including engagement with chanters, performance events, media, training institutions, social media, and digital platforms. It employs a hybrid ethnographic methodology, integrating online and offline spaces, and balancing transnational perspectives with local immersion. Analysing the hybrid ethnographic research design, I interrogate power asymmetries between researchers and interlocutors in fieldwork, reflecting on methodological adaptations during global crises and emphasising collaboration and reflexivity. Furthermore, I identify key oríkì revivalists, exploring how these performers negotiate multiple identities while balancing historical and contemporary practices in shaping oríkì revival. Focusing on ‘birthday chants’, an early and influential model within oríkì’s contemporary reimagination, I examine the intersection of innovation, retention, and indigenisation. I analyse the intricate features of this performance model, showing how chanters manipulate aesthetic and rhythmic elements to foreground meaning and affect while maintaining core structural conventions. I further examine how performers leverage digital platforms to achieve economic viability, reposition oríkì as a sustainable profession, and assert agency in navigating technological and systemic constraints. Finally, the thesis reflects on its applied strategies, highlighting the value of collaborative, insider-led, and co-present approaches in sustaining and reimagining musical practices. By emphasising practitioner agency, tracing the creative complexities of oríkì, and interrogating digital asymmetries, the study contributes to debates on music revival, music sustainability, and the mediation of traditional performance. It engages with studies in Yoruba and African music, ethnomusicology, and anthropology, offering a framework for understanding the persistence, adaptation, and evolving significance of traditional music, while reflecting on ethnomusicology’s role in an increasingly digital and platform-driven musical landscape.