Abstract:
Certain elements are globally accepted as intrinsic commonalities in the phenomenon of sound. Such elements as rhythm, pitch, timbre, and duration when consciously or subconsciously manipulated distinguish the musical sound from the rest. Nigerian popular music—especially the highlife genre—is an acculturative product of the folk music of the traditional environment. The recently renewed scholarly interest in the rhythmic languages of African music has unveiled the centrality of rhythm as the distinctive element of relationship between the Nigerian popular and folk music types. As the argument on the musical value of popular music persists, this scholarly presentation relied on descriptive and analytical methods to show the dominating place of rhythm in the creative rationalization in Nigeria‟s reggae songs of the 1970s and ‟80s.