Two PhD students in the Humanities Department, Nancy Henaku and Yunana Ahmed, presented their research findings at the Cultural Rhetorics Conference held at Michigan State University in East Lansing. The conference took place from 30 September to 2 October, 2016 at the Kellogg Center two other PhD students, Tolu Odebunmi and Edzordzi Agbozo, as well as Olayemi Awotayo, an MSc student from the Humanities Department were participants at the conference. Nancy Henaku presented on the topic “My Baby Loves Me Because I am a Strong African Man: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in a Popular Ghanaian (HipLife) Music,” while Yunana Ahmend’s topic was “Toward an Indigenous Centered Political Rhetorical Analysis: A Study of Nigerian Campaign Discourse.”
Henaku’s work borders on how men and women were represented in a popular music in Ghana. In the music, men are ascribed the qualities of strength while women were ascribed that of weakness. Her findings point to the ongoing discourse about how subaltern of the groups are represented in global discourses and in marketing spheres like advertisements. A major point Henaku made was that “hip-hop music artists are seen by some scholars as modern day Griots, but I suggest that they are not. A reason is that, while the traditional Griots work with authorities: chiefs and kings, and act as orators for these people, the hip-hop artist try to ‘rebel’ against the status quo.” She also pointed out that the hip-hop artists that sung the song she used for her analysis “misused a traditional Akan proverb that they translated in their work.” Since a Griot is a master of traditional rhetorical forms, this misunderstanding and misuse of traditional proverbs supports her suggestion that the hip-hop artists cannot be described as a modern-day Griot.
In West Africa, a Griot is a historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet and/or musician. The Griot is regarded as the custodian of oral tradition and is often seen as a leader in the community because they are the counsel to the royalty they serve. Henaku’s conclusion may seem to shift an academic discourse towards a reconsideration of the role of the hip-hop artist in relation to traditional West African literature and culture. The second presenter, Yunana Ahmed, who presented on political discourse in Nigeria also contested that political speeches form an integral part of our political system, quoting Malea Powell, a University of Michigan Professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures, saying, “[Text] is always a part of a larger community, a larger conversation, a network of relations” so the analysis of political discourses should be able to reveal the nuanced diversities in the particular communities in which the discourses happen. Yunana also suggested that postcolonial contexts are influenced by multiplicity of factors.
