Skin bleaching and women sexualisation: a discourse analysis of Fela Kuti’s Yellow Fever and Ayinla Omowura’s Oro Kan Je Mi Logun

Abstract

Male music artistes have been observed to sexualise women in their songs, especially when commenting on societal problems. Employing van Dijk’s Socio-Cognitive Approach of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this paper examined skin bleaching and women sexualisation in the lyrics of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (Fela Kuti) and Ayinla Omowura. Both songs: Yellow Fever by the latter and Oro kan je mi logun (a matter concerns me) by the former were purposively selected based on popularity and thematic preoccupation, and analysed using linguistic and argumentative strategies. Findings showed persistent sexualisation of women in the songs that were meant to teach morals in the society. Therefore, this exposes the artistes as incurably prejudiced in spite of their best intention.

Keywords: Skin bleaching, Women sexualisation, Popular music, Fela Kuti, Ayinla Omowura