Satire, Social Commentary Authority, Didacticism, and Modern Trends in Abigbo Music of Mbaise, Nigeria

This study examines the function of abigbo music in maintaining the socio-cultural landscape in Mbaise. It finds that, abigbo music is imbued with the authority to comment on issues that breach the tenets of Mbaise ethics, thus checking human excesses and their concomitant effects in society. What bestows abigbo music and musicians with the social authority to confront societal issues and the subjects of their songs inform the discursive framework of this study. The demands of cultural ethics and expectations in Mbaise are seen in this study as the basis for abigbo’s freedom of expression, didacticism, and social commentary. Above all, the social, political, and economic institutions are in an existential relationship with abigbo music in the interest of their mutual survival. The performance practice of abigbo with emphasis on its song-text, as exemplified in this study, is sociologically dissected to justify the established notion that abigbo music is an effective medium for social commentary.