YORUBA ART MUSIC: FRONTING THE PROGENITORS

Abstract

The bedrock of music genres in Africa today remains the traditional music. The western
formal music education embraced by African schools during and after the scramble for
Africa by the northern hemisphere has given ‘colorations’ to music genres both in the
classroom and the larger society. Its legacies are found more in popular music. The most
interesting thing is that essence of music remains undaunted in the faces of all new
formalities in the educational system. Music still lives on stage and not on paper. This paper
emerges as a derivative of the Yoruba Art Music (YAM) festival premiered in 2015 at the
University of Ibadan, Nigeria. With bibliographical evidences and substantial interaction
with a non-Yoruba speaking music scholar this paper sufficed that the YAM festival is worth
doing and is capable of solving other attendant issues in music scholarship.