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Parody after identity: Digital music and the politics of uncertainty in West Africa
Author(s) -
SHIPLEY JESSE WEAVER
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1111/amet.12476
Subject(s) - popular music , contradiction , politics , sociology , allegiance , rivalry , national identity , nigerians , gender studies , media studies , identity (music) , aesthetics , political science , art , visual arts , law , economics , philosophy , epistemology , macroeconomics
The FOKN Bois are an irreverent, cosmopolitan hip‐hop duo from Ghana. They came to fame as part of the digital‐music boom centered in Nigeria that has dominated African popular culture since the mid‐2000s. Their most popular track, “Thank God We're Not a Nigerians,” mocks the national rivalry between Ghana and Nigeria and the idea of national allegiance itself. The song's production and circulation reveal that digital parody is increasingly central to how a rising generation of urban Africans live. Through sounds and images circulating on social media, young cosmopolitan Africans rely on a smartphone‐driven social media–scape to reimagine national territorial identity in virtual terms. The FOKN Bois’ work shows that uncertainty and contradiction can be modes of knowing.