Verbal assault in Fújì music: The case of Sikiru Ayinde Barrister and Kollington Ayinla

Music is an essential tool in the propagation of cultural values. It is informative, educative, and didactic. However, it is also used for negative purposes, one of which is to settle an old score. This worrisome use has been the bane of Nigerian indigenous music, particularly Fújì music. In this paper, the conflict between the two most prominent Fújì musicians – Barrister and Kollington – on the origin of Fújì music is X-rayed through Critical Discourse Analysis, with particular emphasis on face. Transcribed texts of the albums of the two of them which relate to verbal assault were used for the analysis. Despite the fact that the two artistes do not mention each other's name, historical, textual, and contextual facts reveal that they are actually addressing each other. In their albums analyzed, both of them show flagrant disrespect for each other's positive and negative faces, as they pour invective on each other without any attempt at redressing their Face Threatening Acts, except Barrister who occasionally redresses his. They damage each other's social standing, mental state and physical state, against the Yoruba cultural norms.