Description
Book SynopsisThis book explores the “battles” of words, songs, poetry, and performance in Africa and the African Diaspora. These are usually highly competitive, artistic contests in which rival parties duel for supremacy in poetry composition and/or its performance. This volume covers the history of this battle tradition, from its origins in Africa, especially the udje and halo of the Urhobo and Ewe respectively, to its transportation to the Americas and the Caribbean region during the Atlantic slave trade period, and its modern and contemporary manifestations as battle rap or other forms of popular music in Africa. Almost everywhere there are contemporary manifestations of the more traditional, older genres. The book is thus made up of studies of contests in which rivals duel for supremacy in verbal arts, song-poetry, and performance as they display their wit, sense of humor, and poetic expertise.
Table of Contents1. Introduction.—Tanure Ojaide.Part I: African Origins.2. Battle by All Means: Udje as Oral Poetry and Performance—Tanure Ojaide.3. Halo: The Ewe Battle Tradition of Music, Songs, and Performance—Honore Missihoun.4. Poetry and Ping-Pong: Auto/Biographical Verbal Duels in Yoruba Polygamous Households—Adetayo Alabi 5. Shairi and Malumbano: The Tradition of Verbal Warfare in Swahili Literature—Mwenda Mbatiah.6. Moral Authority of Shona Women’s Battlesongs: Revising Customary Law in the Context of Performance Within African Indigenous Knowledge System—Beauty Vambe.Part II: Diaspora Manifestation7. Battles, Raps, Cappin’, The Dozens: African-American Oral Traditions of Insult—Michele Randolph and Maliek Lewis.8. Black Greek Step Shows—Debra Smith.9. Battle Rap: An Exploration of Competitive Rhyming in Hip Hop —Matthew Oware 10. Fighting Words: Songs of Conflict, Censure, and Cussout in Trinidad and Tobago Carnival—Funso Aiyejina.11. Oral Tradition and Cultures in Dialogue: Ondjango Angolano and Jongo da Serrinha— Tonia Leigh Wind.12. Stanzas and Sticks: Poetic and Physical Challenges in the Afro-Brazilian Culture of the Paraíba Valley, Rio de Janeiro—Matthias RohrigAssuncao.Part III: New Transformations.13. Yabis, A Nigerian Genre of Insult—Enajite Eseoghene Ojaruega. 14. Epistemic Recuperation and Contemporary Reconfiguration of the Verbal Battle Tradition in the Poetry of Tanure Ojaide and Kofi Anyidoho—Mathias IroroOrhero.15. The Creativity of Abuse: Power, Song and the ‘Authority of Insults’ in Zimbabwean Music, Post 2017—Maurice TaonezviVambe.16. Bongo Fleva: Its Lyrics, “Inappropriate” Content, Source, and Possible Harm—Dunlop Ochieng.
