Narrative perspectives in selected Ghanaian Hiplife lyrics

Since the emergence of Hiplife as a musical genre in Ghana, it has enjoyed some scholarly attention, focusing primarily on issues pertaining to its evolution as a blend of Hip hop and Ghanaian Highlife genres, as well as how it employs linguistic resources involving code-switching and proverbs to co...

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Main Author: Samuel Kwesi Nkansah
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2024-12-01
Series:Cogent Arts & Humanities
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/23311983.2024.2382551
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author Samuel Kwesi Nkansah
author_facet Samuel Kwesi Nkansah
author_sort Samuel Kwesi Nkansah
collection DOAJ
description Since the emergence of Hiplife as a musical genre in Ghana, it has enjoyed some scholarly attention, focusing primarily on issues pertaining to its evolution as a blend of Hip hop and Ghanaian Highlife genres, as well as how it employs linguistic resources involving code-switching and proverbs to comment on social issues. In this study, I approach the Ghanaian Hiplife genre from a stylistic perspective by focusing on the narrative perspectives Ghanaian Hiplife artistes use in conveying their messages to listeners. From the analysis, it was found that the artistes, in most cases, adopted the autobiographical, third-person and multi-perspectival narrative approaches where the narrator combined either the first-person or the third-person narrative technique. Also, the artistes used multimedia approaches, dialogue, cantor-response, and apostrophes in the songs. The study concludes that Hiplife artistes use traditional narrative perspectives as the initial tools and then adopt other narrative perspectives to be innovative, kill boredom and have lasting stylistic effects on listeners. The study provides a window for literary scholars to be more open to approaching literary analysis as modern creativity transcends the traditional purviews of point of view into more adoptive modes for stylistic effects.
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spelling doaj-art-206d589ebf0c4d648d0b576bbef628de2025-08-20T01:56:38ZengTaylor & Francis GroupCogent Arts & Humanities2331-19832024-12-0111110.1080/23311983.2024.2382551Narrative perspectives in selected Ghanaian Hiplife lyricsSamuel Kwesi Nkansah0Department of English, University of Cape Coast, GhanaSince the emergence of Hiplife as a musical genre in Ghana, it has enjoyed some scholarly attention, focusing primarily on issues pertaining to its evolution as a blend of Hip hop and Ghanaian Highlife genres, as well as how it employs linguistic resources involving code-switching and proverbs to comment on social issues. In this study, I approach the Ghanaian Hiplife genre from a stylistic perspective by focusing on the narrative perspectives Ghanaian Hiplife artistes use in conveying their messages to listeners. From the analysis, it was found that the artistes, in most cases, adopted the autobiographical, third-person and multi-perspectival narrative approaches where the narrator combined either the first-person or the third-person narrative technique. Also, the artistes used multimedia approaches, dialogue, cantor-response, and apostrophes in the songs. The study concludes that Hiplife artistes use traditional narrative perspectives as the initial tools and then adopt other narrative perspectives to be innovative, kill boredom and have lasting stylistic effects on listeners. The study provides a window for literary scholars to be more open to approaching literary analysis as modern creativity transcends the traditional purviews of point of view into more adoptive modes for stylistic effects.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/23311983.2024.2382551Hiplifemulti-perspectivemusicnarrative perspectivestylisticsOliver Nyambi, English, University of the Free State, South Africa
spellingShingle Samuel Kwesi Nkansah
Narrative perspectives in selected Ghanaian Hiplife lyrics
Cogent Arts & Humanities
Hiplife
multi-perspective
music
narrative perspective
stylistics
Oliver Nyambi, English, University of the Free State, South Africa
title Narrative perspectives in selected Ghanaian Hiplife lyrics
title_full Narrative perspectives in selected Ghanaian Hiplife lyrics
title_fullStr Narrative perspectives in selected Ghanaian Hiplife lyrics
title_full_unstemmed Narrative perspectives in selected Ghanaian Hiplife lyrics
title_short Narrative perspectives in selected Ghanaian Hiplife lyrics
title_sort narrative perspectives in selected ghanaian hiplife lyrics
topic Hiplife
multi-perspective
music
narrative perspective
stylistics
Oliver Nyambi, English, University of the Free State, South Africa
url https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/23311983.2024.2382551
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