POPULAR MUSIC AND THE PROLIFERATION OF CRIMES IN NIGERIA: HIP-POP MUSIC AS PARADIGM

Abstract

This study aims at examining the activities of some selected Hip-Pop music with special focus on analyzing the song- texts which encourages proliferation of crimes in Nigerian society. Critical study and decoding of these lyrics, uncovers crime situations and various factors that buoy up criminality in the society. Within the premise of the Sociological and theory of meaning in musicology, this study employed primary and secondary sources of data collection for the purpose of extracting, translating and decoding all the coded crime-related words in the musical data collected. The research findings reveal that song compositions by various hip-pop musicians consists of numerous coded statements and names ascribed to different people and situations which reflect various bad situations and life-styles of people in a society. It is also revealed that majority forms of crime committed by Nigerians are financially related; while others include sex slavery, drug abuse and trafficking, and cultism for money rituals. These crimes are mostly committed by the youths. This study concluded that the study of meaning in the lyrics is a valuable tool in understanding major forms of crimes associated with the youths and causative factors. It also suggests to the security agents, the adoption of lyrical content of music in a society in studying and combating crimes or crime-related issues in that society.