Gospeltainmet: Performance Style as Basis for Entertainment in Nigerian Gospel Music

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Date

2023-04

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Publisher

Pwani University, Kilifi, Kenya.

Abstract

The Nigerian gospel music haven developed as a sub-genre of Christian music over the years in Nigeria has become popular and identified with unique performance styles engaged by the musicians. Such performance styles apart from enhancing the performance also generate entertainment in the context of the ministration intended by the gospel musicians even when the musicians do not admit it. This paper discusses performance style as basis for entertainment in Nigerian Gospel Music by identifying such performance styles and how they are employed. The paper relies on content analysis and descriptive methods, participant-observation and interview as instruments of data collection. The gospeltainment theory is engaged to foreground the discourse. It is discovered that the musicians adopt different performance modes and contexts in order to appeal and sell their music in the phase of keen competition between it and other types of entertainment music that exists in the country. The paper concludes that although the main focus of the gospel musicians is to proclaim the gospel, entertainment is inherent in it even when it is not intended and performance style is one of the vehicles that drive that entertainment. This has made the music to serve a dual purpose of ministration and entertainment because it is religious and has become popular.

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Keywords

Gospel Music; Performance Style; Entertainment; Gospeltainment Theory

Citation

Ruwaza Afrika: Journal of Contemporary Research in Humanities & Social Science, Volume X. March, 2023

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