Challenges and Prospects of Sustaining the Folk Songs of the Urhobo of Delta State Nigeria

Abstract

Folksongs are the music of the common people in the society whose texts are based on their belief, world view, philosophy and the nature of their work. Examples of folksongs include work songs, love songs, children songs and storytelling songs sung and played by the ordinary people in the community. Basically, folk-music lives in oral tradition; it is learned through hearing rather than reading. It is functional in the sense that it is associated with other activities. It is “valued both for its beauty and how well it is fulfilling its function of accompanying work, story-telling, and providing a sense of group solidarity in the society”. In recent times, due to the forces of urbanization and advancement in technology, the folk songs of the Urhobo are confronted with the challenge of extinction as most people no longer sing the songs. Their performances have been replaced with foreign music from the western world; which is a dangerous trend because the Urhobo will lose their music culture and identity generally. Sustaining the folk songs of the Urhobo will enrich the corpus of traditional music world-wide in this period of advancement in technology where the world has become a global village. It is therefore recommended that the Urhobo language should be made the official language in the home; more so kindergarten and primary school teachers in Urhobo land should rather teach their pupils the folk songs which are laden with moral values instead of the rhymes from the western world which have little or no moral knowledge to bequeath to the children