Adeola, Taiye Shola2023-05-082023-05-082023Music and the Scientific Meaning of Man: A Book of Readings in Honour Professor Ademola Adegbite. Yomi Daramola (ed) 255 – 274,978 - 978- 798 - 294 - 5https://uilspace.unilorin.edu.ng/handle/20.500.12484/9651Gospel music is one of the religious musical genres that have developed over the years in Nigeria and the debate on the spiritual and the entertainment contents of it has been on since the 1980s. There is also a dearth of underpinning theories for gospel music in the Nigerian scholarship. Consequently, this chapter expounds on gospeltainment theory identifying the characteristic features in the Nigerian gospel music. The work adopted the cultural-hermeneutical, textual, content analysis and discographical methods. The gospel entertainment theory within the concept of gospeltainment served as our theoretical framework. Cultural – hermeneutical method was used to interpret the song texts in their cultural contexts while discographical and content analysis methods relying on existing recordings were used as resources for analysis of song texts. Participant–observation and interview techniques were also used as instruments of data collection. The characteristic features of gospeltainment are subsumed in three primary intentions of gospel musicians which are the desire to proclaim the gospel; the desire to make the music appeal and the craving for financial gain. These intentions qualify any gospel music performance as gospeltainment. Four basic elements derived from these intentions are the religious or gospel, the musical, the performance styles and the extra-musical in turn define the various characteristic features of gospeltainment. This chapter concludes that gospeltainment should be adopted as a relevant theory for gospel music performance in Nigeria because there are inherent entertainment and ministration elements in every gospel music performance.enNigerian Gospel Music; Gospeltainment Theory; PerformanceBook chapter