When Sounds Learn to Travel: Igbo Music, Media, and Cultural Survival
Conference: The 23rd Annual International Conference of the Igbo Studies Association (ISA) (2026)
Presenter(s): Uche JohnMark Nwaneri
Presentation Date: May 14, 2026 @ 14:28 PM
Abstract
Music has remained a significant aspect of Igbo social life, embodying storytelling, spirituality, political passion, and communal unity. This paper explores how Igbo musical traditions and rituals embedded in native instruments such as the ogene, udu, ekwe, igba, ichaka, oja, and later showcased through palm-wine guitar music, church music, highlife, and other contemporary familiar forms have metamorphosed in response to migration, social change, and evolving media technologies. Placing Igbo music within a wider African and global media perspective, the study follows its movement from communal performance spaces such as village squares and custom practices to cassette culture, radio, and modern digital platforms and streaming platforms. Using a qualitative and media-cultural method, the study examines how the media and entertainment industries have changed the production, reception, and circulation of music, not only for Igbo artists but for African music in general. The paper argues that rather than being replaced by digital media, ancient Igbo music traditions are reshaped by contemporary cultural practices. Long-lived musical ideologies and performance rituals blend with newer genres, crossbred sounds, and visually motivated aesthetics carved by online visibility, Gen-Z culture, and algorithm politics. The study highlights how cultural nostalgia is recreated, modernized, preserved, and reinterpreted in the new digital age.
10 views