Onyeka Nwelue shared: Furthermore, Splash’s talent was evident in how she utilized Aba Igbo, a variant of Igbo language which could be considered as slangish, street, and uniquely figurative. It was the formula which Nigeria’s current no.1 rapper, Phyno, augmented his lyrical deliveries with to mesmerize the entire country. Even for Igbos, the Abanized Igbo (slangish Igbo) seemed to induce a unique sensation which Igbo Izugbe (Standard Igbo) didn’t offer. To expatiate more on the power of the Abanized Igbo in rap may veer the essay into a linguistic track, and there’s scarcely space for that. But to cite a simple example: when Phyno sang on the chorus of his biggest record titled Alobam (itself an Abanized word for ‘my personal person’) that: “men pasa n’ogbe”, the coventional Igbo translation would be: “boys are sitting in the street.” However, an Abanized understanding of it meant: “boys are relaxing but not smiling in the street.” The word pasa connotes ‘relaxing and not smiling.’ Clearly, there is nothing like pasa in Igbo lexicon, it is an Abanized Igbo word but Phyno had to use it to bring sophistication to the music. This is one of the things counting in Splash’s favour. Her peerless ability as a femcee to use Abanized Igbo in the core of her lyrics. In the track, Church Agbasa, she dropped many of such lines like ha na ako ife na agba ka motor. Again the conventional Igbo translation of that would be: “they are saying things that run as fast as a car.” But in the Abanized translation, it simply means “they are talking nonsense.” Sadly, every other song she had put out in the wake of that record has been lacklustre. (A Long Way to Go: Nigerian Hip Hop, Female Rappers And the Lack of Longevity by Mitt Okorie, from HIP-HOP IS ONLY FOR CHILDREN.)
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 18:15:30 +0000
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