Introduction

Wasiu Alabi's catchy melody and lyrics, consisting of every possible combination of the words émi (me), láiyé (alive in the world), and mi (me), became a popular choral refrain with the cohort of fújì-loving bàtá artists in the rural town of Erìn-Oṣun, Nigeria, during the late 1990s. Whenever I joked with these artists about their potential stardom as globally renowned fújì front men, they would try to out-perform each other by singing and dancing some version of the tune, “Émi láiyé mi.” Not only are the words and melody easy to remember, but they represent a significant shift in the style and content of performance for extended families of drummers and dancers who specialize in traditional Yorùbá Bàtá. “It's All about Me” gave the young artists the creative license to transform their traditional artists' identities into pop culture personae (see fig. 6.1). However, these young artists' fathers criticized their children's “all about me” culture for its diversion from tradition, àṣà ìbíle. What can we learn from this generation gap in a rural Nigerian town during the late 1990s?