When Vulgarism Comes through Popular music: An Investigation of Slackness in Zimdancehall Music

Abstract

In Zimbabwe, popular music, particularly the Zimdancehall music genre, has become a cultural site where Shona moral values clash with  explicit sexual lyrical content despite a censorship regime in the country. This article examines the nature and cultural consequences of  the moral decadence that emerges in popular Zimdancehall song lyrics by several musicians. The article illustrates how vulgar language  popularises Zimdancehall songs in unheralded ways that foster identities laced with cultural ambivalences that may portray the artists as  both famous and depraved. This qualitative study does textual and content analysis of 11 purposively sampled songs with sex terms to  elucidate the cultural inconsistencies in Zimdancehall song narratives. Analysis is informed by the Neuro-Psycho-Social theory, which  recognises how socio-cultural restrictions are challenged by an emerging ghetto culture like new wine in old bottles. Alternative  unsanctioned new popular music genres can be used to permeate the sociocultural system.