Talking back: linguistic exploration of female artistes’ ‘responses’ to patriarchy and stereotypes in Nigerian hip-hop

ABSTRACT

Patriarchal tendencies are normative in hip-hop culture, necessitating contemporary calls for gender equality and wholesome gender representations. These have encouraged a ‘talking back’ where the marginalised re-appropriate established norms and consciously recreate their identities. Interrogating lyrics and videos of popular female Nigerian hip-hop artistes, we explore female agency and discuss how these artistes combat patriarchy and achieve linguistic reclamation of feminine identities. The Multimodal Social Semiotic Analysis framework is complemented with Womanism – an Africa-rooted strand of the feminist movement. The ‘talking and taking back’ were catalogued under four classifications: reactions and responses to female denigration and assault; combating patriarchy through challenging and reinventing gender roles; re-appropriation of pejoratives and assertion of stereotypes; and the use of sexual expressions, slurs, and slang in the renegotiation of female agency. These findings are important in a strongly patriarchal Nigerian society where female voices do not enjoy significant propagation. The re-creations and ‘responses’ assert female agency and consolidate the advocacies for equality and equity in gender relations.

KEYWORDS:

• Talking back
• Nigerian hip-hop
• patriarchy
• re-appropriation
• gender studies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2017/08/14/ghana-must-go-containing-the-mayhem-of-migration/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul Ayodele Onanuga

Paul Ayodele Onanuga lectures in the Department of English and Literary Studies, Federal University Oye-Ekiti, Nigeria. His research interests revolve around Nigerian hip hop studies, computer mediated communication/discourse analysis, and Nigerian queer sexualities on digital media platforms. He is widely published.

Ayobami Olajumoke Onanuga

Ayobami Olajumoke Onanuga has a PhD from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria where she studied the victimhood of homosexual characters and the agency of women in sexually oppressing male homosexuals in African fictional narratives. She is an early career researcher and currently an independent scholar with research interests in African fiction, genocide narratives in literature, and queer and gender studies. Her articles have been published in the Journal of Literary Studies, the Contemporary Music Review, the Journal of the African Literature Association, and Analize, among others.