Musical Narratives of Yoruba Indigenous Food, Transformations, and Human Health Sustainability

Abstract

This study focuses on musical narratives of Yoruba indigenous foods and their transformations. Scholarship in music has been conducted on mobility trajectories on infrastructures, however, little has been discussed on musical narratives of Yoruba indigenous foods and their transformations in southwestern Nigeria. The study adopted archival and ethnographic methods with interviews, textual and musical analysis. The archival sources include the analysis of traditional chants, linguistic evidence, historical evidence, hereditary, and legends. Secondary data were sourced through the library and the internet. Based on the transformative theoretical framework and its uniqueness, this study draws on the values of cultural history, object analysis, and environmental trajectories to recreate a theoretical footing on Yoruba foods for expropriation and integration into the body of knowledge. The study concluded that music and old chants are signifiers of the trajectories of foods, food production, and consumption, and how they influenced the human body and bodily sustainability among the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria.