Popular Music Education: Insights from Tabuley’s ‘Muzina’

Abstract

Tabu Ley Rocherou was a renowned popular musician and songwriter. Most listeners to his music knew/know him for his secular popular music themes, structures and performance styles. However, his song ‘Muzina’ is arguably his best rendered Christian worship music in terms of thematic concerns, choice of lyrics, development, structure and performance techniques – albeit conceived along popular and secular dance music styles. In this paper, I endeavour to unearth, enumerate, discuss, elaborate and demonstrate critical song writing nuggets evident in Tabu Ley’s ‘Muzina’ for purposes of informing pathways and filling knowledge gaps in popular music education. The paper is underpinned by popular music composition, performance and analysis theories and common practices that cut across secular and sacred genres. Song lyrics and recorded music form key units of discussion and analysis that drive coherent debatable issues – generally in popular music studies and specifically in song writing practice. Eventually, the paper generates and recommends several best practices for song writing as exemplified in Tabu Ley’s ‘Muzina’. The insights will, hopefully, be informative to upcoming and experienced song writers, popular musicians (performers and composers) and music educators at all levels. This paper is premised on the fact that listening and deeply analysing popular hit songs like Muzina is a recipe for nurturing and rejuvenating song writing skills.