Dolly Parton, Africans, Country Music, and Humanitarianism

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Moses Ebe Ochonu

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Nov 20, 2020, 11:02:59 AM11/20/20
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Nigerians/Africans’ relationship with country music is a subject that requires a sustained academic investigation.

Such is the depth of this relationship that when I first came to the US as a student, I took pride in telling my African American housemate of my fondness for country music—classical country embodied by Don Williams, Dan Seals, Kenny Rogers, and of course Dolly Parton.

My friend, a hip hop connoisseur, was not amused. In fact he was scandalized. In America, young black people do not go around proclaiming their love of country music. Doing so will cost them many coolness points.

My friend of course didn’t know the extent to which country music was very much a part of our lives in Nigeria, how we woke up to it, how it accompanied us on long trips, and how the public airwaves were saturated with it.

This post is not about country music per se, and I have given this preamble only because it is relevant to the point I want to make.

To fully grasp the profound ways that American country music speaks to African working and middle class imaginaries and articulates values, hopes, and sentiments popular among Africans of those classes, please read Pius Adesanmi’s essay on the subject. It is one of the essays in his award winning book, Africa, You are Not a Country.

Africa's country music fandom underscores the trans-national mobility and resonance of folk mentalities that are nurtured by music--any music--that celebrates and is attuned to the struggles and solidarities of simple working people wherever they may be.

It is not useful to cheapen such transnational musical flows and the sentimental work that they do by subsuming them reductively in an analytical premise of cultural imperialism. That would occlude the ways in which music and other aesthetic expressions travel and are adopted, adapted, appropriated, and repurposed in unexpected places and in unexpected ways outside the familiar nodes of soft imperial power.

Enough of the digression and excessive academic analysis, for I don't want to be guilty of the same over-analyzing that I'm warning against when it comes to the simple folk pleasures of country music. I am here to talk about Dolly Parton. I grew up listening to her music. Her melody and voice were all-purpose soothing balms for us. Her music told us that things would be alright even if they appeared bleak in the moment.

Little did I know that I would end up in Nashville, smacked in the so-called Mecca of country music where Dolly and her iconography and imagery are ubiquitous.

At first I was just happy to be living in the same state/city as a musician who was such a big part of my childhood.

Gradually, however, I came to learn about her multifaceted charitable works and my admiration for her grew even more and began to transcend her music.

I took my family to Dollywood, an amazing theme park she built and which bears her name and oozes her aesthetic proclivities.

Every now and then, there would be a story on her on the local news and the occasional interview about her charitable works.

Then when our younger daughter was born, I experienced firsthand one aspect of her philanthropic generosity. Literally a few months after the birth, we started receiving children‘s books from a Dolly Parton charity. The books kept coming and were the first books we read to our daughter and in which she first encountered educational pictures of various kinds. The books came monthly until the age of 5 I think.

Dolly does this for every child born in the state of Tennessee and pays for the books from her personal fortune.

She is a major donor to several children’s causes and supports children’s hospitals across the state.

She makes appearances to cheer up children in distress.

She has made many donations to a variety of medical and health charities. She also supports many social justice and equality causes, not caring what people in her conservative natal Tennessee might think of those gestures.

As I learned of her charitable works, my fondness for her swelled. What’s more, in a state and industry dominated by an avowedly conservative political tendency, Dolly Parton chooses to remain doggedly apolitical, helping humanity without reference to its political fault lines.

My admiration for Dolly Parton reached stratospheric heights this week when it was reported that the $1 million she donated to Vanderbilt University Hospital was to aid the development of a COVID-19 vaccine and that she was one of the biggest funders of the Moderna COVID vaccine, which just reported a success rate of 94 percent and will be rolled out next month after approval is obtained.

Dolly Parton is putting her money and attention where her passion and empathy are. She is still rich and it seems that the more she helps humanity the richer she gets.

I could not be prouder to live in the same world, country, state, and city as this iconic musician and humanitarian.

This is my way of thanking Dolly Parton for her timeless music and her enduring humanitarian impact on the world. When the story of the battle against COVID is written, she will feature prominently.

Salimonu Kadiri

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Nov 22, 2020, 5:28:27 PM11/22/20
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​..... when I first came to the US as a student, I took pride in telling my African American housemate of my fondness for country music - classical country embodied by Don Williams, Dan Seals, Kenny Rogers and of course Dolly Parton. /....../ My friend (the African American housemate) of course didn't know the extent to which country music was very much a part of our lives in Nigeria, how we woke up to it, how it accompanied us on long trips and how the public airwaves were saturated with it - Moses Ebe Ochonu

If Moses had limited himself to telling his African American friend of his personal love for country music, there would not have been any problem. But the claim that country music was very much a part of our lives in Nigeria, at any period of time in history, cannot be true. In the 50s Calypso music from British West Indies was very popular in Nigeria (mostly in the South) from which the West Africans developed the High Life music. Of course, we have various and different kinds of local music too. In the 60s, Soul music was developed in the US, and became very popular in Nigeria, especially among the educated elites. In the 70s, Reggae and Rap music which developed in Jamaica and the US respectively made inroad into Nigeria. Whether we are talking about Calypso, Soul , Reggae or Rap music, they all have their origins in African rhythms, which explains their embracement and acceptance in Nigeria (Africa). On the other hand, Country Music, also known as bill-hilly music, is a kind of folk songs associated with western cow boys in the south eastern part of the US. Dancers of country music form square or circular figures in which partners in rows face each other. That kind of rhythmless music can never be attractive to Nigerians (Africans) who by tradition and culture are used to not only listening to music but dancing to it. Thus, it is not unlikely that a minority of literate Nigerians came across country music, a white folk's music and decided to adopt it as a symbol of their being civilised and culturally refined. Landing in Nashville the original home of Country music, I can understand the survival instinct in Moses that pushed him to tell his Nashville pal that the most popular music in Nigeria was Country music. The Yoruba aphorism says, Bi a bá dé ibi tí eran'ko péjo si, nse lã nwa nkan ti ojó ìrù fi há ìdi, meaning, when one finds self in the congregation of animals, one must find something that looks like tail to fix to the buttock. The wisdom in that aphorism is that one must pretend to be an animal in the midst of animals in order to attract their acceptance of oneself and avert their hostility. When you are in Rome you do as the Romans. When you are in Nashville, Tennessee, you must pretend to love country music.

Moses eulogised Dolly Parton for donating one million dollars ($1m) to Vanderbilt University Hospital to aid their research for vaccine against COVID-19. The late Chinua Achebe once observed rightly in his book, Anthills of the Savannah that, "Charity is the opium of the privileged, whereas the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary." I agree with Achebe that what the world needs is socio-political and economic justice and when that is done there will be no need for charity. Of what use is the charity of weapon manufacturers and sellers when they donate money to the Red Cross to take care of victims of war? Does a cocoa farmer, for an instance, need charity aid instead of adequate payment for his product so that he can have the same standard of living as the consumers of his cocoa? What has impressed me mostly in Dolly Parton's donation and the behaviour of the recipients of her donation, unlike Nigeria, is that the donation was expended on what it was meant for. In Nigeria, funds paid by the government to research and find vaccine COVID-19 would have been stolen with impunity. At best the EFCC or ICCP will charge the culprits to court where Judges will grant them bail after monetary handshakes and the case will be adjourned sine die. For those who may think I am exaggerating, let me remind them of the Makurdi flood disaster in Benue State in 2012. Jonathan's led Federal Government paid N500 million immediately as flood relief to the flood victims who were forced into refugee camps. But flood victims got nothing and one of them, named Dennis Igbana told Premium Times, Nigeria, "Now some people are making jest of us, they took advantage of our situation to enrich themselves while we live in abject poverty, they are constantly praying yet for another flood because of what they stand to gain." The then Chairman of the Benue State Committee on Flood Disaster Relief Management, Theophilus Adzaagee, attributed the delay in resettling the victims to what he termed, lack of comprehensive data!!! About five months after the camps for flood victims were closed, 24 November 2012, fire gutted Local Government Education Authority in Wurukum, Makurdi, where relief materials meant for the flood refugees were stored. The Governor of Benue State, then, was Gabriel Suswam. When his two terms tenure ended in 2015, he became a Senator. He was charged in Court, in 2016,  by the EFCC for stealing billions of naira, he received on behalf of Benue State from the Federal Revenue allocations. He has since been granted bail and his case adjourned indefinitely while he continues to make laws as a legislator. As it is in Benue, so it is in every state in Nigeria. A case like COVID-19, should not depend on individual charity in search for cure or vaccine, rather it should be financed by the entire world under the auspices of WHO. Despite that, I still appreciate the honesty of the team from Vanderbilt University Hospital for spending received donations for the purpose for which the funds were donated.
S. Kadiri 

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Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Dolly Parton, Africans, Country Music, and Humanitarianism
 
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Sabella Abidde

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Nov 22, 2020, 6:42:11 PM11/22/20
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Good greetings brother Salimonu Kadiri,

 

I get brother Moses Ochonu’s position…

 

I was born in and grew up in Lagos and went to boarding school in Ilorin. Shortly after Ilorin, I moved to Jos for two years. In between, I spent time with friends, family, and in-laws in Osogbo, Ibadan, Bauchi, Ife, Port Harcourt, Benin, Warri, Sapele, Akure, and Calabar. In all these places -- along with music from the Caribbean/West Indies -- there was country music.

 

I was never a student at any Nigerian university; however, I visited friends, in-laws, and family members at UI, OAU, UNIJOS, UNIBEN, UNIPORT, and ILORIN. Again, in all these institutions – along with music from the Caribbean/West Indies -- there was country music.

 

Country music is also a staple in the many Nigerian homes that I have spent time in, in this country especially if they are from the lower half of Nigeria. I have lived in DC, Oklahoma, Texas, Washington State, Florida, Minnesota, and Alabama. And I have visited no fewer than 38 other states. Same thing, same story…country music!

 

Frankly, I know of no Nigerian my/around my age (48-65) who grew up in Nigeria who does not have an affinity for country music. In addition to the names brother Moses mentioned, I could easily add a couple more, i.e. Johnny Cash, Jim Reeves, Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette, Waylon Jennings. The “biggest” of them all (in the Nigeria of my youth) was Don Williams, Jim Reeves, Dolly Parton, and Kenny Rogers.  

 

So, I get brother Moses Ochonu’s position.

 

All the best,

 

Sabella Abidde


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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Nov 22, 2020, 9:39:07 PM11/22/20
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I think Alagba Kadiri left Nigeria shortly before the influx of country nusic to Nigeria ( most likely left early 70s)

I remember vividly that country music made its inroads into the Nigerian music scene from the mid to late 70s from the university campuses.  We were the generation that baptised it.  By the early 80s it boomed from many music shacks.  It portrayed ( because of its idyllic evocations) literally that America was an El- Dorado.  The archetypal land of green pastures as literally portrayed in country music. 

 I remember one of my undergraduate female mates who fell head over heels in love with it ( particularly Dolly) and in all her gestures portrayed herself as an idyllic country American, born in the wrong place ( this attitude was a big turn off for me and made me distance myself gradually from her.  She was not the closer Igbo friend who wanted both of us  to go over and settle in the US with her brother.  She is Yorùbá.  I distanced myself from both. Ibrahim Babangida performed the magic they could not pull off- made me leave)

I can see why by the time of  Moses's coming of age it would be everywhere particularly within the Pentecostal groups ( American export to Nigeria) to which he belongs.



OAA



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Harrow, Kenneth

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Nov 22, 2020, 9:39:20 PM11/22/20
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i loved moses's posting on country music as well. but the politics of country music in this country is not what it is abroad. i suspect it has onemeaning in nigeria, another in europe, and certainly another here.
in this country, i think moses indicated well, we generally associate it with less educated, more rightwing, more down to earth, working class people.
it carries a rightwing association. in contrast to it, when i grew up, the liberal, even revolutionary style music was folkmusic. the songs in country emphasized looove, strength, maniliness, feminity; in folk music it was love of land and nature, it was solidarity, especially with unions and the proletariat, and resistance to wealthy classes.
country was tied to the south, and its racist politics
folk music came to the campuses, up north, to resistance movements, etc.
i am sure dolly parton got a bum deal from us because of reasons moses suggested. our hero was joan baez. dolly parton dressed to be sexy to truck drivers, joan baez had jewish and mexican roots, and we love her joining the resistance to the vietnam war.
day and night differences
ken

kenneth harrow

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Uyilawa Usuanlele

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Nov 23, 2020, 7:33:13 AM11/23/20
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I doubt the claim by OAA that the influx of country music into Nigeria was in the 1970s. It might not have been popular in the area where OAA grew up, but it was there maybe even before independence. I grew up in Benin in the 1960s with my late father playing country music in his radiogram and I hated the mournful songs of Jim Reeves that rented the air in my house on Sunday mornings in the 1960s. The Midwest Broadcasting Corporation Radio of the 1960s played Jim Reeves, Everly Brothers, and so on, and their songs featured in the record songbooks published in the 1960s which my elder sisters owned. We should not forget the cultural influence of the American Baptist churches during the colonial period and the American Peace Corp's in spreading this aspect of American culture.
Uyilawa

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Gbolahan Gbadamosi

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Nov 23, 2020, 7:33:13 AM11/23/20
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This is a very interesting thread! I always appreciate when people are able to reveal details of their association with events especially the when and the how.


I couldn’t possibly remember how I got associated and began to love country music but I can remember I sincerely did (and still do) since the 70s and in Lagos. Clearly, I must have been hearing Country music around me because I certainly didn’t go looking for it. I have always been fascinated by Dolly Parton, Don Williams and Kenny Rogers. It would be difficult to stop listening to any of these three even with right wing associations adduced by Ken 😀


Gbolahan Gbadamosi 



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On 23 Nov 2020, at 02:39, Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu> wrote:



OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Nov 23, 2020, 8:40:16 AM11/23/20
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Uyi.

Agreed.  I also heard Jim Reeves and Everly Brothers in the 60s.  We actually had Everly Brothers rrp 45 vinyls in our house, bought in the UK.  But these were restricted to the educated elites and government broadcast stations ( early morning and late night slots).

 My A levels buddy and I struck a common chord because we found we both loved the Everly Brothers/TammyWynette kind of country which we dubbed 'the sentimentals'   unlike more than 90% of our other mates ( with your kind of music sensibilities who felt turned off.)

What I emphasised was inroads into the popular music scene by being hawked and blared  across the corner music shacks to be purchased by everyone in the open market.

That was a 70s development.


OAA



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I doubt the claim by OAA that the influx of country music into Nigeria was in the 1970s. It might not have been popular in the area where OAA grew up, but it was there maybe even before independence. I grew up in Benin in the 1960s with my late father playing country music in his radiogram and I hated the mournful songs of Jim Reeves that rented the air in my house on Sunday mornings in the 1960s. The Midwest Broadcasting Corporation Radio of the 1960s played Jim Reeves, Everly Brothers, and so on, and their songs featured in the record songbooks published in the 1960s which my elder sisters owned. We should not forget the cultural influence of the American Baptist churches during the colonial period and the American Peace Corp's in spreading this aspect of American culture.
Uyilawa

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Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Nov 23, 2020, 9:22:08 AM11/23/20
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How many of these country - music songbirds
support(ed) the racist, pro - slavery, Southern confederate flag- if any? I don’t know the answer but  it would shed light on the overall engagement of this  genre of American music.


Professor Gloria Emeagwali
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Sabella Abidde

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Nov 23, 2020, 9:40:04 AM11/23/20
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Moses Ebe Ochonu

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Nov 23, 2020, 10:00:57 AM11/23/20
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Ken,

You put a finger on classical country music's thematic preoccupations when you stated that the songs emphasize "love, strength, manliness, [and] feminity." I think that this is what translates and resonates in Nigeria/Africa. Country songs are also, for lack of a better expressive device, what I would describe as the balladic soundtracks of the simple, laid-back, contented life of the working class. A good country song slows life down to a pace that is calming, relaxing, and reassuring while shutting out the noise and bustle of a harsh world on the outside.This may require further reflection and inquiry, but the themes of family, masculinity, love, and femininity that are prominent in country songs are the bedrocks of traditional social conservatism (as opposed to neoconservatism and right-wing nuttery), which many Nigerians and Africans find appealing because it speaks to their anxieties, aspirations, and notions of honor.

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Nov 23, 2020, 10:12:34 AM11/23/20
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moses, honestly, i defer to you in describing it. all of us have heard the music all our lives, it is probably the most common public music heard everywhere. i associate it with that heavily stressed southern accent, one we can easily make fun of since it is so accentuated. and the guitar twang sound; the easy evocation of emotions--i died, i loved, he was everything, she was the most beautiful, ....  but i don't know the music beyond this superficial account.
the politics are very implicit, the kind of thing that we recognize and account for why a conservative politician would want to have their campaign larded with the style and music of country.
k

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Moses Ebe Ochonu

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Nov 23, 2020, 10:12:34 AM11/23/20
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Gloria,

As I stated in my initial post, country music in America is associated with the racial and conservative politics of the South, which is bound up in Confederacy nostalgia, lost cause rhetoric, and other exclusionary practices that people of color rightly experience and interpret as racism and pro-slavery ideology. Some country music is more overtly pro-South than others, and some artistes were/are more implicated in pro-slavery pro-confedracy politics than others. 

But country music has changed a lot and is changing a lot. Of course, nowadays you have crossover country, which incorporates pop, rock, hip hop, blues, bluegrass, etc. In other words, many of today's country music practitioners are not part of that old Southern legacy of conservative Southern folk nostalgia. Some are even natives of the northeast, midwest, and the West, who came to Nashville to pursue their country music dreams.

What I find particularly interesting about Dolly Parton is that even though she was part of the old country scene that was steeped in pro-confederacy sociopolitical motifs and faced pressure to confirm and proclaim her loyalty to that politics, she repeatedly refused and supported progressive causes, delicately navigating this politics and her own personal progressive ideals. How she has done this without losing her fans and while remaining the iconic darling/matriarch of country music is phenomenal.

What is remarkable, as Ken pointed out and as I hinted in my initial post, is that country music's reception in Africa completely sidesteps or ignores this American provenance of country music.

I get it. It is not double consciousness. It is not Stockholm Syndrome. It is none of these things. It is not even ignorance of this history that keeps Nigerians/Africans loving country music. I think music has a way of crossing many forbidden boundaries, challenging taboos, and confounding taken-for-granted binaries. People can simply compartmentalize a particular musical or aesthetic product and refuse to reference or engage its anthropological and political atmospherics.

This is the reason I argued in my initial post against overanalyzing, over-complicating, and overthinking the African/Nigerian affinity for country music. Music can be apolitical like that, especially when it travels beyond its natal origins.

On Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 8:22 AM Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emea...@ccsu.edu> wrote:
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Gloria Emeagwali

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Nov 23, 2020, 10:12:34 AM11/23/20
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....... and make the country great again (MAGA) and bring back the good old days.

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On Nov 23, 2020, at 10:00, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com> wrote:



Harrow, Kenneth

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Nov 23, 2020, 10:28:29 AM11/23/20
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we'd say it is reterritorialized, whenever it travels.
i remember a long time ago, around 1961 i believe, i was studying french one summer in pau, in classes for foreigners. one night we were singing our home country songs, and i sang some folksong, one we all sang to expression solidarity w unions/working class. the russians there misunderstood the lyrics and took them to express xenophobic patriotism or some such rightwing sentiments. i was shocked, and didn't know how to disabuse them of their misunderstandings.
ken

kenneth harrow

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Nov 23, 2020, 10:43:48 AM11/23/20
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Ken.

The truth is country and folk music sound similar to Nigerians. Not until I left Nigeria and actually watched country musicians on television did I notice some of these attributes in them and deduced they were not singing to and for the benefits of the likes of Nigerians but to their own kind.

I really dont know how they would feel seeing Nigerians like me and my buddy singing tunes like: 'Darling you can count on me/ Devoted to you/ Red Sails in the Sunset' /' Blue Tears on my Pink Pillow' etc. as we used to when we made our way across campus.

Im sure there are cross overs in the genres and sub- genres.


OAA





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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Dolly Parton, Africans, CountryMusic,  and Humanitarianism

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i loved moses's posting on country music as well. but the politics of country music in this country is not what it is abroad. i suspect it has onemeaning in nigeria, another in europe, and certainly another here.
in this country, i think moses indicated well, we generally associate it with less educated, more rightwing, more down to earth, working class people.
it carries a rightwing association. in contrast to it, when i grew up, the liberal, even revolutionary style music was folkmusic. the songs in country emphasized looove, strength, maniliness, feminity; in folk music it was love of land and nature, it was solidarity, especially with unions and the proletariat, and resistance to wealthy classes.
country was tied to the south, and its racist politics
folk music came to the campuses, up north, to resistance movements, etc.
i am sure dolly parton got a bum deal from us because of reasons moses suggested. our hero was joan baez. dolly parton dressed to be sexy to truck drivers, joan baez had jewish and mexican roots, and we love her joining the resistance to the vietnam war.
day and night differences
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Dolly Parton, Africans, Country Music, and Humanitarianism
 

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Moses Ebe Ochonu

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Nov 23, 2020, 11:53:42 AM11/23/20
to USAAfricaDialogue
Yes, Ken, about reterritorialization. And the semiotic field of such traveling songs expand and become quite flexible and unpredictable. In that frame, Nigerians/Africans can repopulate a country song with new meanings or repurpose it to do what it did/does not do in America. The political baggage does not translate but some of the working class folksiness and traditional values, whether they are authentic or mere stand-ins for something more sinister in the American context, do.

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Nov 23, 2020, 12:31:11 PM11/23/20
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ok, thanks moses


kenneth harrow

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dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

Sent: Monday, November 23, 2020 10:56 AM

Harrow, Kenneth

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Nov 23, 2020, 12:31:11 PM11/23/20
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dear olayinka
a friend says, we all wear funny hats. i love the picture you paint of nigerians on campus singing country western. we have lost of americans, of all ages, returning after stays in africa wearing african clothing....
sometimes it says, too loudly, look at me, i went to this exotic place. but sometimes, i think, it has become a second skin, too.
we all change over time, the longer we stay in a place; and those who can change, well, i think it is usually for the better.
picking up the local language is the greatest benefit one can have; i came to that understanding a bit too late in my life....
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2020 10:40 AM
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Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Dolly Parton, Africans, CountryMusic, and Humanitarianism
 

Gloria Emeagwali

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Nov 23, 2020, 12:50:39 PM11/23/20
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https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-middle-east-45393904
Anti- Semitic Wagner music ban by Israel



All they had to do was to 
“reterritorialize“ the music.

Gloria Emeagwali 



On Nov 23, 2020, at 11:53, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com> wrote:



Harrow, Kenneth

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Nov 23, 2020, 5:55:02 PM11/23/20
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they were wrong not to play it; daniel barenboim was right. in my view.
however, your point is taken, not in this instance (the govt is rightwing, which perhaps is a factor), but generally yes. offending people has its limits; it would also be impossible to "reterritorialize" the german nazi national athem, deutschland uber alles. but words, there can and were changed.

in general, reterritorializing means we can change and adapt; that the original need not remain the same forever. words that once were painful change meaning; and the opposite. i do not believe the verb to gyp someone had any relationship to gypies when i grew up. but common understandings change. when i was a kid a mailman might have been a woman; or chairman might have been a woman. now that usage is not accepted, generally, at least by educated people.
so, gloria, i take your point, but within limits
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.e...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2020 12:48 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Salimonu Kadiri

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Nov 28, 2020, 1:43:46 PM11/28/20
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​OOA, you are almost correct. I left Nigeria shortly before the outbreak of the civil war. Before then most educated Nigerians had moulded themselves not only in the image of the Whiteman but had also decided to conform to the behaviours and values of the Whiteman in the most minute details. "The educated African", Lord Lugard remarked already in his 1922 book, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa, "imitates European dress and customs closely, however ill adapted to his conditions of life, and may be heard to speak of going 'home' to England. He has, as a rule, little in common with indigenous tribes of Africa, ..... The Europeanised African is indeed separated from the rest of the people by a gulf which no racial affinity can bridge. He must be treated - and seems to desire to be treated - as though he were of different race (a Whiteman)." The Europeanised and educated Nigerians, as observed by Lugard, are called in Yoruba parlance ÒYÌNBÓ ALÁWÒ DÚDÚ, meaning Whiteman with Black Colour simply because of their acquired tastes and behaviours towards fellow non-English language literate Nigerians. During my own time in Nigeria, few listened to country music which our Yoruba people characterised as ORIN ARÒ or ORIN ÒFÒ, meaning funeral/mourning song or lamentation/sad/sorrowful song, to mock the music.

Few generations of Nigerians after 1967, especially the school, college, and university going, were attracted to Euro-American music, including Country music, since it lured and aroused them as well as stimulated their sexual instincts which was why those Nigerians wrongly refer to the alien music as sentimental. Most Euro-American music are always about sexual love while in Nigeria music is about teaching morals and how to escape from abject poverty. From the time immemorial, European men in particular have never been sexually disciplined and they lacked sexual control. One just has to remember that in the 14th century, 33% of European population was wiped out by bubonic plague but by 15th century Europe had become overpopulated to the extent that they had to wipe out the aborigines in America, Australia, and New Zealand to settle their surplus population. The display of lack of sexual control by the Whiteman began right from the time slavery where African women were constantly raped. As Calvin H. Hernton pointed out in his book, Sex & Racism, "In the key cities of the South in such states as Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, Florida and Georgia, mulattoes constitute a large proportion of the Negro population. Mississippi, where segregation is said to be strictest, has the highest number of mixed-race children between White men and Black women, although racially, although White men never considered Black women as human females but she-dogs." Unlike Europe, the purpose of sex in Africa has always been to procreate. Therefore, sexual intercourse is restricted within married partners. Getting married between a man and a woman in Nigeria, before the coming of sentimental music, was not only the concern of the would-be husband and wife as they had to obtain the approval of parents, and at times, the entire relatives on both sides of the would-be couples. There was no pre-marital sexual taste or trial marriage or boys' and girls' friends. Boys and girls were required to keep their virginity until marriage but a polygamous man, a widow or a widower remarrying were exempted from the virgin requirement on marriage. Polygamy as it was then practised was to ensure that available females were mated since obviously, there were more females than males. On sexual discipline and self-controlled in Africa, the first British Governor General of Nigeria, Lord Lugard, observed, "The custom, which seems fairly general among the negro tribes of suckling a child for two to three years during which a woman lives apart from her husband, tends to decrease population."  Unlike Europe of Lugard where a nursing mother was forced into sexual intercourse by the husband, the Nigerian man was so sexually disciplined as to refrain from subjecting his nursing wife to sexual burden. Apart from the aforesaid, the only sexual activity recognised in pre-sentimental music Nigeria, was between a male and a female performed with their biologically prescribed sexual organs.

Not everything done in Europe and the US is bad but in Nigeria, and indeed the entire Africa, we have the tendency of copying bad, and not good, things from them. The post-sentimental music Nigeria has given rise to the importation of million kilograms of condoms from Europe and the US in order to encourage illicit sex among citizens. With the arrival of sentimental music, Nigeria also imported various forms of sexual practices that were previously unknown in our culture. Now Nigerians talk freely about homosexuality, lesbianism (tribadism), zoophilia (sexual intercourse by humans with animals otherwise known as bestiality), rape and fellatio (oral sex) which have no corresponding or equivalent words in any of Nigerian languages since those perverse proclivities and vices were never practised. My main point on this particular thread is not about country music and Dolly Parton and her donation of $1 million to Vanderbilt University Hospital to conduct research for the discovery of vaccine for COVID-19, but that the University in question expended the money received for the purpose for which it was donated to get the desired result. If compared with Nigeria since independence, especially, from 1985 and hitherto one will see that in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA), public officials, selected or elected, appointed or employed who are entrusted with funds for socio-economic welfare development of Nigeria used to steal the funds with impunity contrary to what was obtained at the Vanderbilt University Hospital with regards to the research and discovery of vaccine for COVID-19. The core issue here is that researchers at Vanderbilt University Hospital are satisfied with their agreed salaries and allowances, thus making it unthinkable for them to steal funds entrusted in their cares for research. Besides, they are aware that should they steal the fund that is so vital for the survival of many people the law would effectively be deployed to get the thieves incarcerated. In Nigeria, public officials in all the MDAs who are highly remunerated to encourage efficiency and maximum production constantly divert public funds into their private use!! Thousand cases of theft of public funds have been pending in courts for decades as the pilferers of billions of naira of public funds were granted bail and their cases adjourned sine die. In some cases, the pilferers of public funds remain in office without being questioned or sacked. Why are most Nigerian intellectuals on this forum unwilling to tackle their intellectual colleagues in charge of Nigeria's MDAs for lack of performance and thievery? We have heard hypocritical intellectuals on this forum complain about high petrol pump price in Nigeria, whereas their intellectual colleagues at the Nigeria's oil refineries receive daily allocations of 445,000 barrel of crude oil per day with zero production of petrol and they don't even account for what happens to the unrefined crude oil received!! ​https://punchng.com/refineries-gulped-n81-41bn-refined-zero-crude-nnpc/    
A total of N81.41bn was expended on Nigeria’s refineries between January and August this year but the facilities refined no drop of crude oil all through this period, latest data obtained from ...
​So, let us forget Country music and Dolly Parton's donation and, instead, concentrate on the honesty and efficiency of the team of researchers at Vanderbilt University Hospital in discovering vaccine for COVID-19 and by extension ask ourselves why Nigerian intellectuals have largely been unproductive in every field of human service where they have been employed and afforded the opportunity to display their expertise.
S. Kadiri 

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: 23 November 2020 01:36
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Dolly Parton, Africans, Country Music, and Humanitarianism
 

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Nov 28, 2020, 2:39:28 PM11/28/20
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Very, very entertaining thread.

I came to love country music through my dad who played music every morning, meaning I woke up hearing those soulful sounds I will always associate with that blissful morning of my life.

On my own, I came to appreciate Kenny Rogers' fantastic 'The Gambler'' and Johnny Cash's magnificent recordings from Folsom Prison, if I recall the name correctly.

I have not been able to find the political undertones about Southern right wing policies described of  this music but perhaps I need to listen to more of it.

Kadiri's perspectives on the subject are interesting but they look rather far fetched to me. I could not find a better word to describe how I see them.


thanks

toyin

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/HE1P193MB00765E099F71A46547352123AEFB0%40HE1P193MB0076.EURP193.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM.

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Nov 28, 2020, 2:46:36 PM11/28/20
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Interesting. The first time I encountered fellatio in a serious discursive sense was when I left Nigeria and was doing my first graduate degree in the psychoanalysis class and when treating the history of sexuality.

To be honest I felt repulsed because in Nigeria it was  a taboo topic for class discussion.

Here it was being discussed like it was recipe for baking cake.

 I decided instantly it wasnt something I wanted to pursue as scholarly specialisation.


OAA


Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.



-------- Original message --------
From: Salimonu Kadiri <ogunl...@hotmail.com>
Date: 28/11/2020 18:47 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Dolly Parton, Africans, CountryMusic,  and Humanitarianism

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​OOA, you are almost correct. I left Nigeria shortly before the outbreak of the civil war. Before then most educated Nigerians had moulded themselves not only in the image of the Whiteman but had also decided to conform to the behaviours and values of the Whiteman in the most minute details. "The educated African", Lord Lugard remarked already in his 1922 book, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa, "imitates European dress and customs closely, however ill adapted to his conditions of life, and may be heard to speak of going 'home' to England. He has, as a rule, little in common with indigenous tribes of Africa, ..... The Europeanised African is indeed separated from the rest of the people by a gulf which no racial affinity can bridge. He must be treated - and seems to desire to be treated - as though he were of different race (a Whiteman)." The Europeanised and educated Nigerians, as observed by Lugard, are called in Yoruba parlance ÒYÌNBÓ ALÁWÒ DÚDÚ, meaning Whiteman with Black Colour simply because of their acquired tastes and behaviours towards fellow non-English language literate Nigerians. During my own time in Nigeria, few listened to country music which our Yoruba people characterised as ORIN ARÒ or ORIN ÒFÒ, meaning funeral/mourning song or lamentation/sad/sorrowful song, to mock the music.

Few generations of Nigerians after 1967, especially the school, college, and university going, were attracted to Euro-American music, including Country music, since it lured and aroused them as well as stimulated their sexual instincts which was why those Nigerians wrongly refer to the alien music as sentimental. Most Euro-American music are always about sexual love while in Nigeria music is about teaching morals and how to escape from abject poverty. From the time immemorial, European men in particular have never been sexually disciplined and they lacked sexual control. One just has to remember that in the 14th century, 33% of European population was wiped out by bubonic plague but by 15th century Europe had become overpopulated to the extent that they had to wipe out the aborigines in America, Australia, and New Zealand to settle their surplus population. The display of lack of sexual control by the Whiteman began right from the time slavery where African women were constantly raped. As Calvin H. Hernton pointed out in his book, Sex & Racism, "In the key cities of the South in such states as Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, Florida and Georgia, mulattoes constitute a large proportion of the Negro population. Mississippi, where segregation is said to be strictest, has the highest number of mixed-race children between White men and Black women, although racially, although White men never considered Black women as human females but she-dogs." Unlike Europe, the purpose of sex in Africa has always been to procreate. Therefore, sexual intercourse is restricted within married partners. Getting married between a man and a woman in Nigeria, before the coming of sentimental music, was not only the concern of the would-be husband and wife as they had to obtain the approval of parents, and at times, the entire relatives on both sides of the would-be couples. There was no pre-marital sexual taste or trial marriage or boys' and girls' friends. Boys and girls were required to keep their virginity until marriage but a polygamous man, a widow or a widower remarrying were exempted from the virgin requirement on marriage. Polygamy as it was then practised was to ensure that available females were mated since obviously, there were more females than males. On sexual discipline and self-controlled in Africa, the first British Governor General of Nigeria, Lord Lugard, observed, "The custom, which seems fairly general among the negro tribes of suckling a child for two to three years during which a woman lives apart from her husband, tends to decrease population."  Unlike Europe of Lugard where a nursing mother was forced into sexual intercourse by the husband, the Nigerian man was so sexually disciplined as to refrain from subjecting his nursing wife to sexual burden. Apart from the aforesaid, the only sexual activity recognised in pre-sentimental music Nigeria, was between a male and a female performed with their biologically prescribed sexual organs.

Not everything done in Europe and the US is bad but in Nigeria, and indeed the entire Africa, we have the tendency of copying bad, and not good, things from them. The post-sentimental music Nigeria has given rise to the importation of million kilograms of condoms from Europe and the US in order to encourage illicit sex among citizens. With the arrival of sentimental music, Nigeria also imported various forms of sexual practices that were previously unknown in our culture. Now Nigerians talk freely about homosexuality, lesbianism (tribadism), zoophilia (sexual intercourse by humans with animals otherwise known as bestiality), rape and fellatio (oral sex) which have no corresponding or equivalent words in any of Nigerian languages since those perverse proclivities and vices were never practised. My main point on this particular thread is not about country music and Dolly Parton and her donation of $1 million to Vanderbilt University Hospital to conduct research for the discovery of vaccine for COVID-19, but that the University in question expended the money received for the purpose for which it was donated to get the desired result. If compared with Nigeria since independence, especially, from 1985 and hitherto one will see that in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA), public officials, selected or elected, appointed or employed who are entrusted with funds for socio-economic welfare development of Nigeria used to steal the funds with impunity contrary to what was obtained at the Vanderbilt University Hospital with regards to the research and discovery of vaccine for COVID-19. The core issue here is that researchers at Vanderbilt University Hospital are satisfied with their agreed salaries and allowances, thus making it unthinkable for them to steal funds entrusted in their cares for research. Besides, they are aware that should they steal the fund that is so vital for the survival of many people the law would effectively be deployed to get the thieves incarcerated. In Nigeria, public officials in all the MDAs who are highly remunerated to encourage efficiency and maximum production constantly divert public funds into their private use!! Thousand cases of theft of public funds have been pending in courts for decades as the pilferers of billions of naira of public funds were granted bail and their cases adjourned sine die. In some cases, the pilferers of public funds remain in office without being questioned or sacked. Why are most Nigerian intellectuals on this forum unwilling to tackle their intellectual colleagues in charge of Nigeria's MDAs for lack of performance and thievery? We have heard hypocritical intellectuals on this forum complain about high petrol pump price in Nigeria, whereas their intellectual colleagues at the Nigeria's oil refineries receive daily allocations of 445,000 barrel of crude oil per day with zero production of petrol and they don't even account for what happens to the unrefined crude oil received!! ​https://punchng.com/refineries-gulped-n81-41bn-refined-zero-crude-nnpc/    
A total of N81.41bn was expended on Nigeria’s refineries between January and August this year but the facilities refined no drop of crude oil all through this period, latest data obtained from ...
​So, let us forget Country music and Dolly Parton's donation and, instead, concentrate on the honesty and efficiency of the team of researchers at Vanderbilt University Hospital in discovering vaccine for COVID-19 and by extension ask ourselves why Nigerian intellectuals have largely been unproductive in every field of human service where they have been employed and afforded the opportunity to display their expertise.
S. Kadiri 

Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Dolly Parton, Africans, Country Music, and Humanitarianism
 

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Nov 29, 2020, 2:55:45 AM11/29/20
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hi toyin, you have to learn to read all the signs in the music to recognize how conservatives relate to it. truck drivers, muscles, tattoos etc etc; if you grew up here you'd know how it was used in the culture, and get it immediately just from the accent of the singing.
nothing intrinsic in the lyrics is necessarily right wing; it just has come to signify that in our culture.
and it isn't just dolly parton herself who might well represent a set of ideals that are widely espoused, but jimmy cash does as well. on the one hand you have cops and the law, but on the other prisoners and escapees who might be lauded in the music and in the cultural images. it is no doubt carefully used by advertisers to get those "american" values pitched.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 28, 2020 2:38 PM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Nov 29, 2020, 3:14:52 AM11/29/20
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Thanks, Ken.

An introduction to another side of something from a far away place brought close to one.

Thanks

Toyin

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DM5PR12MB2456A161B58E9153F8EFAACEDAF60%40DM5PR12MB2456.namprd12.prod.outlook.com.

Salimonu Kadiri

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Nov 29, 2020, 11:10:41 AM11/29/20
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​I came to love country music every morning, meaning I woke up hearing those soulful(?) sounds I will always associate with that blissful mourning of my life - Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju. Well, the type of music you listened to in your childhood might have, also at matured age, been responsible for your Thursday, 6 September 2018, post on this forum titled, Julian Phillips and Ideals of Manhood. It contained erotic images of one Julian Phillips holding his erected penis with sperm flushing out!!! Not being proud alone of that porn images, you once sneaked behind a lady in Lagos and photographed her buttocks, presumably not with her consent, which you published on this forum under the headline, Beauties of Lagos : Meeting Kant in the Metropolis -A shock of discovery. With tacit reference to the voluptuous buttocks of the photographed lady you remarked, "Carrying the treasure (buttocks) across the road. When virtually everyone on this forum was awed by the behaviour of a professor at the Obafemi Awolowo's University for demanding sex from a female student in exchange for pass grade, you, Oluwatoyin, in your contribution to the debate on this forum, advocated for the establishment of state bordel in Nigeria where men could go and *rock off* as a way of pleasing the illicit sexual desires of men (professors). A child's upbringing matters a lot in matured life.

My father moulded the characters of his sons by carefully nurturing, awarding punishment for vice and rewarding for virtue. In so doing, he taught us to grow up to be men with acceptable precepts of culture and society. My father listened to indigenous music with meditative lyrics that placed emphasis on philosophical messages and we enjoyed listening to that music with him. Our cultures in Nigeria have been perverted and strongly polluted to the extent that we now believe in our own degradation and have now accepted to live in indignity and worthlessness. Thus, in the Federal Republic of Nigeria there arises royal kingdom of whores.​ 
A Nigerian politician and UK-based Nurse has been sentenced to jail for 14 years after using voodoo magic to force Nigerian ladies to work as prostitutes in Europe so she could fund a lavish lifestyle.
​S. Kadiri
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu>
Sent: 29 November 2020 04:22

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Nov 29, 2020, 1:48:17 PM11/29/20
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Interesting, Salimonu.

The conjunction between country music, with it's consistent sobriety, and erotica, is a long shot.

I wonder if that argument can be sustained through any chains of logic.

Are you making this argument for all Western music?

Whichever genres of Western music you are so characterizing, what qualities do they demonstrate that make you think they are erotically inciting?

Thanks

Toyin

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/HE1P193MB0076085FAC1B0040CAB2DE83AEF60%40HE1P193MB0076.EURP193.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM.

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Nov 29, 2020, 8:34:48 PM11/29/20
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These summation of the Adepoju persona is what made me ( and I suppose many others on the forum) come to the conclusion that philosophy (in the best and hallowed traditions of that word) is the last place to which he belongs if we look at the systematised way ( from the psychoanalytical perspective) the mind works!  That is the reason it is easy to locate Freudian slips.  Add that to constant rabble rousing antics of Toyin Adepoju and you won't be guessing too much where the persona actually belongs.

I cannot forget how shocked I was to find him uploading those images to this forum and how he thought it was no big deal!
The persona is so incoherent when it comes to values I dont know whats gone so wrong.


OAA





Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.



-------- Original message --------
From: Salimonu Kadiri <ogunl...@hotmail.com>
Date: 29/11/2020 16:18 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Dolly Parton, Africans, CountryMusic,  and Humanitarianism

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​I came to love country music every morning, meaning I woke up hearing those soulful(?) sounds I will always associate with that blissful mourning of my life - Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju. Well, the type of music you listened to in your childhood might have, also at matured age, been responsible for your Thursday, 6 September 2018, post on this forum titled, Julian Phillips and Ideals of Manhood. It contained erotic images of one Julian Phillips holding his erected penis with sperm flushing out!!! Not being proud alone of that porn images, you once sneaked behind a lady in Lagos and photographed her buttocks, presumably not with her consent, which you published on this forum under the headline, Beauties of Lagos : Meeting Kant in the Metropolis -A shock of discovery. With tacit reference to the voluptuous buttocks of the photographed lady you remarked, "Carrying the treasure (buttocks) across the road. When virtually everyone on this forum was awed by the behaviour of a professor at the Obafemi Awolowo's University for demanding sex from a female student in exchange for pass grade, you, Oluwatoyin, in your contribution to the debate on this forum, advocated for the establishment of state bordel in Nigeria where men could go and *rock off* as a way of pleasing the illicit sexual desires of men (professors). A child's upbringing matters a lot in matured life.

My father moulded the characters of his sons by carefully nurturing, awarding punishment for vice and rewarding for virtue. In so doing, he taught us to grow up to be men with acceptable precepts of culture and society. My father listened to indigenous music with meditative lyrics that placed emphasis on philosophical messages and we enjoyed listening to that music with him. Our cultures in Nigeria have been perverted and strongly polluted to the extent that we now believe in our own degradation and have now accepted to live in indignity and worthlessness. Thus, in the Federal Republic of Nigeria there arises royal kingdom of whores.​ 
A Nigerian politician and UK-based Nurse has been sentenced to jail for 14 years after using voodoo magic to force Nigerian ladies to work as prostitutes in Europe so she could fund a lavish lifestyle.
​S. Kadiri
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu>
Sent: 29 November 2020 04:22

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Yahaya Danjuma

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Dec 10, 2020, 4:02:49 AM12/10/20
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On Nov 20, 2020, at 23:54, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com> wrote:

Nigerians/Africans’ relationship with country music is a subject that requires a sustained academic investigation.




I hope it’s not too late to jump in on this thread, which seems to have gone all over everywhere.

Country music has deep African roots, which probably helps to explain its popularity in Africa.

The banjo’s being the most obviously African musical instrument to have survived slavery in the US is only the most tactile example of that African influence.

Ethnomusicologists have been exploring other aspects of Country’s African roots. Alas I have no musical talent myself and thus can only report what others discover.

I talked a little about it in "The African Heritage of White America" in _Africanisms in American Culture_ edited by J.E. Holloway.

Others picked up on it and I was able to report more in the book's second edition.

Country music has never been completely white in the United States.

Oral tradition has it that Deford Bailey was first to play at the Grand Ole Opry.

Even when Country tried to segregate itself they couldn’t stop Ray Charles from recording country music.

But “white” culture in the US has never been completely European. If we’re smart we learn where we can.

We’ve just had trouble acknowledging that fact about ourselves. Or some of us have.

I think one reason US culture has been so popular around the world is that mixing.


John Edward Philips  <http://human.cc.hirosaki-u.ac.jp/philips/>
International Society, College of Humanities, Hirosaki University
"Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto." -Terentius Afer
<http://newworldafricanpress.com/books/000026.htm>

Harrow, Kenneth

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Dec 10, 2020, 11:28:31 AM12/10/20
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i've been watching nollywood films on netflix as i exercise in the morning. talk about country music: despair over love, your cheating heart, rags to riches, riches to rags, quick and easy and fast emotions; moaning and dancing and laughing and crying, all close to the bone, close to the surface. country music just the right sort of accompaniment for all the action and styles. it's popular style, made for any age group. easy to see how nigeria swooped it up.
ironic, too, to think, when kenny rogers was popular in my youth, here on the other side of the world in nigeria he too was popular.
was this true throughout the continent?? i wonder.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Yahaya Danjuma <yahaya....@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2020 3:55 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Dolly Parton, Africans, Country Music, and Humanitarianism

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