Abstract

The spectrum of female song-poets in Africa, though in high proportion, has been shown little interest by African scholars. In the Urhobo musical repertoire, male musicians have dominated the foray of academic output; whenever mention is made to female song-poets/ensembles, significant details about the content and functions of their songs are not considered. However, the steady growth of professional/semi-professional Urhobo female musical ensembles in recent times has provided vents for critical evaluation of their songs. This paper therefore examines the contribution of Urhobo female song-poets to the development of African music and Urhobo popular music tradition. It discusses aspects of the Urhobo popular music genre as a form that replaces the satiric/classical traditions such as udje and ighọvwan. Extensive references are made to early female musical ensembles like the igbe-emete (maiden dance-songs). We adopted the formalist and sociological approaches in the examination of the compositional mechanics of the selected song-texts in relation to the society. It concludes that more researches should be carried out on female musicians in Urhobo land in order to popularize the form as well as encourage new entrants.