Ethical Reorientation in Ayinla Omowura Music

Every society usually is beset with ethical challenges in the choice of conventional and intentional codes of ethics. The media through popular music has been known to preserve them by engaging some of the moral problems found in different societies. In the South-Western, Nigeria, Ayinla Omowura was one of the prominent indigenous musicians who through rhetorical strategies such as abuse, ridicule, praise, proverbs, dirge etc has philosophically commented on some ethical problems in his immediate environment. The need for moral conducts in the society, followed by socio-political matters and self-glorification featured more prominently in his music. Moreover, these ethical themes were also discovered to relate to conceptual problems of good/evil, justice/punishment and rightness/wrongness, all of which guide the philosophy of ethics in African cultural practices. Due to the dearth of attention on Nigerian indigenous music artists' works, this work is meant to sensitise music enthusiasts, researchers, historians and cultural promoters to begin to see the indigenous popular music as a veritable preservator of our cultures.