The Spoken Word Poetry as a Reincarnation of African Oral Literary Tradition

The Apollonian approach to poetry, where there is a specific structure, rhyme, and tradition of writing poetry, has limited the scope of Western poetry and has restricted readers from experiencing dynamism in poetic tradition, which is essential in the African poetic tradition. There is a notion of the carnivalesque in African poetic tradition where, through the performance of oral literature, the literary piece takes a new shape and evolves out of an Apollonian approach. This Dionysian element in African poetry provides a poststructuralist approach, where each time an oral poem is performed, the content gets revised through the evolving performance of the piece. According to the Western standard, the oral poetic traditions ‘do not fit neatly into the familiar categories of literate cultures’, and that might be the reason behind African literature not receiving its due importance and respect (Finnegan 3). It is interesting to note that, while European literary culture celebrates the Dionysian aspect of its dramatic tradition, it turns a blind eye towards the rich old roots of African poetic tradition, which is centred in orality rather than written literary practices. Because ‘the oral tradition has largely been “written out” of literary history’, African poetry has never found its canonical positioning in the world forum (Brown 5). Between the binary understanding of written and oral literature, where the first term enjoys hierarchy, the second term is always perceived in relation and negation to the first term. While discussing African poetry or poetry from the different nations of Africa, one cannot miss the historical oral tradition of African poetry only to emphasize the written ones, which were produced as a result of the colonial interventions.

While it is highly improper to perceive written poetic tradition as not essential to African literature, still, a discussion about African poetry almost always privileges a thorough understanding of the oral roots of this literature. Owing to the dearth of proper and unbiased research on African poetry, it would be unjustified to claim that the written tradition is not essential to the literatures from Africa. It is true that colonial exposure popularized written literary culture or might have catalysed such a literary practice among African poets, but one needs to do credible research on the topic to find out if there was any form of written literary tradition in any parts of Africa before the colonial advent. Eurocentric criticism of African oral or performative poetry viewed African oral poetry as ‘crude and artistically undeveloped formulations’ because they ‘are harder to record and present, and, for a superficial observer at least, they are easier to overlook than the corresponding written material’ (Finnegan 3). But with the advent of the modern genre of spoken word poetry, this kind of criticism will not stand strong. It has been a decade since spoken word poetry gained popularity on the world forum. The way Western culture has adopted and popularized the format, it seems ironic that this same culture once nullified the credibility of the African poetic tradition based on the ground that more than performance it is the written text that demands and deserves validity. This paper will discuss some of the most popular African performers of spoken word poetry and their works, which have been gaining importance amidst the white-washed aspects of the spoken word poetry tradition. Some of the artists of spoken word poetry, such as Hafsat Abdullahi, Nomfundo Khambule, Onome Enakerakpor, Bothale Boikanyo and Xabiso Vili, will be the focus of this research. Through a qualitative analysis of their poetic performances, it will be shown how traditional African oral poetry has evolved into a form where the oldest roots of this literary culture have been revived by modern age poets.

The ramifications of colonialism were instrumental in suppressing the traditional poetic practices of the different African nations and introducing the written form as the only valid form of composing poetry. The Western poetic ‘model leads us to think of the written element as the primary and thus somehow the most fundamental material in every kind of literature – a concentration on the words to the exclusion of the vital and essential aspect of performance’ (Finnegan 6). In the Eurocentric format, it is work of the poet that is considered to be the active piece while the poet remains in the background as the passive creator. It is only in relation to the poet’s biographical references that at times the meaning of the poem is decoded. So, the poet in the Western poetic tradition does not have a very active role in delivering the meaning of the poem, rather he or she maintains distance from their work. On the contrary, in the African oral poetic tradition, the poet has an active role in hinting at the meaning of the text through his or her performance of the piece. African poetry does not happen in isolation from the poet or the creator, rather it takes place with and because of the poet who performs the creative piece in front of the audience. ‘Oral literature is by definition dependent on a performer who formulates it in words on a specific occasion’, and that is something that makes it unique and poststructuralist in essence (Finnegan, 4).

As the African nations came in contact with the colonizers, they adopted their cultures and traditions along with their specific literary practices. But that does not make modern African poetry something which is not essential to its culture. Rather it shows the dynamism of a culture that can easily adapt to new styles of writing and develop its own essence in doing so. One cannot deny the fact that the ‘significance of performance in oral literature goes beyond a mere matter of definition: for the nature of the performance itself can make an important contribution to the impact of the particular literary form being exhibited’ (Finnegan 5). Due to the lack of recorded archives of traditional oral poetry and insufficient research on them, it is impossible to comment on that content, but a modern manifestation of that oral poetic culture can be found in the spoken word poetry from Africa that is making rounds on the internet. It can be said that ‘the effort in contemporary African poetry is geared toward recovering that traditional image of the poet’ who used to perform the piece and pass it on to the next generation as a part of oral tradition (Okpewho 13). Just like every performance is unique in its own right, so is the case with the oral poetry of Africa, which always takes a new shape once the same piece is performed by different people and on different occasions. This modern trend of spoken word poetry has ‘driven the literate poets to reidentify themselves with the oral traditional roots of their craft’ (Okpewho 23).

A close analysis of recent works of African spoken word poetry will show how they draw upon the traditional poetic practice where the poet was at the centre of the poem just by virtue of being the performer who generated the intended meaning of the literary piece. Just because something has no written record, one cannot discount the credibility of a literary tradition of a specific culture which has a long history. The modern age African poets thus stand as symbols of revolt, who are trying to revive their traditional poetic practices on the world forum to hint at the long history of the African literary tradition that has been marginalized by Western critics. The Nigerian poet Hafsat Abdullahi’s poem ‘Mother Tongue’ is a brilliant example of that endeavour where the traditional role of the African poet as the dynamic performer can be noticed. Through her work and her performance, she tries to communicate the discrimination and pain that every African culture has suffered in the face of the exclusionary trends of Western culture. Her poem speaks of her rage towards those who try to humiliate her for her indigenous English accent. The way she performs her poem, with the use of specific pace, tone and gestures, underscores clearly how bothered she is about the trends of those cultures which try to marginalize the diverse accents of the English language by standardizing one single accent as the yardstick of perfection. When she says that ‘this accent is a story of my survival, tells how my mother tongue endures till this day, See my mouth is a battlefield, a clash of unyielding cultures waring for dominance, see my tongue is a traumatized survivor’, her anger is clearly communicated through all the kinesics she uses (Abdullahi 2022).

It is important to note that, in relation to traditional oral poetic practices, ‘tone is sometimes used as a structural element in literary expression and can be exploited by the oral artist in ways somewhat analogous to the use of rhyme or rhythm in written European poetry’ (Finnegan 6). Hafsat’s use of a specific tone, her swift delivery and her rap-like pace of performance adds a dimension to her poetry that would not have been possible if it was only a textual presentation and not a verbal one. The way she uses her hand gestures to emphasize her points, the way she uses facial expressions to express deep feelings or the way her dress acts as an add-on to her performance allow her to enhance the dynamism of the work. Traditionally speaking, poets in African oral performances always paid considerable attention to the way they presented themselves, and thus one can easily notice resemblances of such traditional elements in the performance of spoken word poetry by poets like Abdullahi. In reference to the work of poets like Abdullahi, it is natural that ‘we cannot hope fully to understand their impact or subtlety if we consider only the bare words on a printed page’ (Finnegan 7).

Researchers who work on the traditional oral poetry of Africa have noticed how ‘an appropriate pace and level of excitement for the words which are chanted at considerable speed’ bear much significance (Okpewho 11). If it were not for the pace and the tone of Abdullahi, the message she wants to communicate would not reach her audience. As mentioned earlier, the Dionysian element in the African oral poetic tradition sets it apart from a structured notion of written poetry. Unlike the Apollonian essence of following a restrictive prosodic pattern with emphasis on a regular pattern of sound and rhythm, Hafsat’s poem breaks free from any such restrictions, and, with irregular pace and rhythm, her performance gives way to an open interpretive structure. To cite an example, when Hafsat utters the last line of her poem that ‘It’s about time when you learn my own language too’, she makes a particular gesture with her hands which symbolizes power and confidence, almost a gesture of challenging those who try to bring down people like her (Abdullahi 2022). This line can be performed in many ways to suggest different kinds of emotions. While Hafsat makes a gesture of challenging and defiance, one might simply utter this line with a neutral pace and pitch and without such a gesture to communicate a toned-down message. This is where one can notice the poststructuralist essence in the spoken word poetry or for that matter the oral poetry.

The sense of carnivalesque is also at play here because the genre of spoken word poetry becomes a platform where the hierarchical order seems to become upside-down, which allows African poets like Hafsat to communicate their messages through performative poetry and re-establishing the significant position of oral poetic tradition in Africa. Rather than being a passive creator, poets like Hafsat actively perform their poetry to deliver the message they want to circulate. Just like a traditional African poetic performance, Hafsat performs her poem by using kinesics to a greater extent. Unlike the traditional African poetic performances, which were accompanied by some musical instruments, Hafsat alters that element with the effect of an echo in the audio. The way her voice reverberates seems to symbolize how the years of effort to silence the African poetic voice is being challenged with the echo of a revolting poetic voice that attempts to destroy that silence. As an evolved form of the African oral poetic tradition, Hafsat seems to incorporate all the traditional elements but in a fresh way to make her poetry more relevant to the present-day audience.

South African poet Nomfundo Khambule’s poem ‘Walk with me’ is yet another example of spoken word poetry that shows how these new-age African poets are bringing back elements of the traditional African oral literature and catalysing the evolution of the form with their technological innovations. The use of background music in the poem shows how ‘much of what is normally classed as poetry in African oral literature is designed to be performed in a musical setting, and the musical and verbal elements are thus interdependent’ (Finnegan 6-7). The emotional tone of this poetry is expressed using the specific colour scheme of the visuals, the walking gestures of the poet, her expressions, her attire and the slow-paced melancholic background score. In case of a poetic performance ‘a verbal evocation of mood’ happens ‘also by the dress, accoutrements, or observed bearing of the performer’ (Finnegan 7). Reflecting upon the poetry of Nomfundo, it becomes clear how the adaptation of the traditional style has allowed the poet to reinvent the oral poetic tradition of Africa. Her work emphasizes her experience of overcoming various barriers to make her voice heard. With the recorded version of the poems, poets like Nomfundo have been able to overcome the Eurocentric criticism that denied African oral poetry its credibility because oral poetry did not have any valid record. With the advancement of technology, this barrier has been destroyed, and that has allowed spoken word poets like Nomfundo to reclaim the credibility of the African poetic tradition. When in her poem ‘Walk with me’ she says that ‘I no longer fight using my wrists but now it is with my voice, my key weapon’, the rage and melancholy become even more highlighted (Khambule, 2020).

One can call this new-age spoken word poetry an extension of the African oral poetic tradition only because this recent poetic trend mirrors the evolved version of that tradition. The active movements, the vitality, the celebratory tradition of African oral poetry can be found in the recent spoken word poetry of those African poets who incorporate all the traditional elements in a way that represents their poetic heritage but with an evolved outlook.

On the other hand, Onome Enakerakpor’s work entitled ‘A poem about the African’ speaks about the pride of being a Black person, or more precisely, the pride of being an African. The poet speaks about the significance of the African identity and how that identity speaks about the history of the continent. It seems to be a reaction against the colonial understanding of Africa, which was almost always fettered with bias. Through the mode of oral poetry, or to be more appropriate the mode of spoken word poetry, the poet tries to appeal to the audience by making them feel deeply about their identities as Africans. To understand how this poem breaks away from the Eurocentric model of poetry, we need to focus on the fact that the essence of the poetry rests in the performance more than the written words on paper. The fact that Africans had always been concerned with the impact of their literary creations made them concentrate on the performative aspect of the creative piece rather than the passive reading value. There is no specific prosodic structure, and the varied use of pace, tone and pronunciations make the performances even more appealing to the audience. For instance, when he says ‘I am made of black’ and he pauses for a few seconds before moving on to the next line, it is the subtle and intricate pause that communicates to the audience the message of pride and confidence of reclaiming Blackness as a powerful part of identity (Enakerakpor, 2018). The background, the dress code, the body language and the voice modulations of the performance seem to resonate the traditional trends of oral poetry in Africa.

A very careful analysis of these performances also reveals that African poets always have a tendency to make exaggerated gestures and voice modulations in their poetry performances in comparison to any Western performer. On this note, it can be said that the spoken word poets from African nations also have been able to keep that essence to project the rage that is mostly the subject matter of their creations. It is with the exaggerated voice modulations and body language that they show their disgust towards the Western world that had always been disdainful to people of African descent.

The South African poet Xabiso Vili’s rendition of ‘Forget how to die’ also echoes a similar message, where the constant struggle to fight back against the history of racism seems to be hinted by the poet through his performance. As he utters the lines ‘I am tired sighs the breath of my breath, from here I will pull all the strength I have left’, the pain of the experience is communicated by his fluctuating tone and violent hand gestures (Vili 2022). In this regard ‘an oral poetry performance may be usefully compared to a dramatic monologue in which the performer supports his verbalization with a due amount of “semantic component,” in the form of gestures, grimes, etc.’ (Okpewho 8). So, there is no doubt about the fact that the modern genre of spoken word poetry can be read as a reincarnation of the older oral poetic tradition. A close look at this performance shows how the weight and pain of the written words have been delivered with perfect emotions by the performer to ensure that the audience can relate with the pain that has been bothering a whole community for so long. The line where Vili says: ‘My kind have nooses for blood, and bullets for eyes, knives in their throats that shows when we smile’, the cry within reverberates through his voice (Vili 2022).

In most of the popular spoken word poetry by African poets, it is noticeable how they voice their migrant experiences, which have been troubling the Black community for eons. Keeping in tune with the carnivalesque essence of traditional African oral poetry, the spoken word poets from Africa make the social media platform a medium to celebrate the power of different voices, opinions, experiences and perspectives. It seems to be a celebration where the hierarchy is altered, and every voice is given equal space to develop and rebel.

The question of double consciousness has time and again surfaced in the matter of spoken word poetry. These poets are seen speaking about how colonial exposure has forced them to live two lives, where their ethnic identity tries to come out of suppression and express itself. This makes the new age poets of the spoken word poetry genre closer to the image of the ‘griot’ who was ‘the traditional oral artist’ (Jones et al. 1). For in the written poetic tradition, one gets no scope to revise the piece based on the reaction of the audience, but in case of a performer of oral poetry, the individual can sense the audience reaction and thus mould the speech accordingly. In the African oral poetic tradition, most of the time, the performers also make dance movements to enhance their performance, and that element can be seen in Bothale Boikanyo’s poem ‘It is our light, not darkness’, where she makes slow dance movements to accompany her poetic verse and the background score. What is it if not a carnival dance? These modern spoken word poets have been able to incorporate old elements in a new way through their interpretive poetic performances. It is the performance that enhances the dynamism of the poems and that indeed points towards the superiority of this genre for going beyond the codified norms.

Spoken word poetry has become a way through which the suppressed voices and histories of the African oral poetic tradition are trying to find a voice. Their ‘use, for instance, of vivid ideophones or of dramatized dialogue, or manipulation of the audience’s sense of humour or susceptibility (when played on by a skilled performer) to be amazed, or shocked, or moved, or enthralled at appropriate moments’ is central to these poetry performances (Finnegan 7). Just like the traditional African poet, who considered his surrounding, his audience and the mood of the event for enhancing his performance, so it is the case with the modern poets from the African nations, who have taken to the platform of social media to rediscover the oral poetic tradition that has been an important part of African literary history.

The dynamism of oral poetry rests in the fact that an ‘essential factor is the audience, which, as is not the case with written forms, is often directly involved in the actualization and creation of a piece of oral literature’ (Finnegan 12). This interaction between the poet and the audience makes the performance even more dynamic in nature as ‘a performance takes place as action, interaction, and relation’ (Schechner 30). For example, we can notice in the video of the poem by Onome Enakerakpor and Xabiso Vili how these poets are looking at the audience and framing their gestures and voice modulations to ensure that they are successfully able to communicate feelings through their performance. The way Xabiso Vili makes rapid movements of his head while performing the lines of poetry reflects the sense of discontent that he tries to communicate with the audience. These intricate details in the performance allows the genre of spoken word poetry to break free from the Eurocentric overindulgence with Apollonian aspects of poetry and celebrate the traditional aspects of African oral poetry, which embodies the essence of openness. It is this poststructuralist approach to poetry that directs one to understand the genre of spoken word poetry as an extension of traditional African oral poetry that has always been looked down on owing to the overwhelming privileging of written literary forms over oral literatures.

While the theorists from the West took until the 1960s to begin a discussion on performance, African literature has been doing it for centuries through their traditional poetry by merging performance with poetic composition. But, owing to the one-dimensional understanding of the West about poetry as a written form, the unwritten oral forms have never been considered by the Western canon as valid literature. It can be mentioned in this regard that ‘oral literature (often in this context called “folklore”) was relatively undeveloped and primitive; and this derogatory interpretation was applied to oral literature both in completely non-literate societies and when it coexisted with written literary forms in “civilized’ cultures”’ (Finnegan 17). These ‘unlettered performers’ did not seem important until the advent of the internet and the celebration of this tradition in the name of spoken word poetry (Okpewho 4). In that connection the modern age poets from Africa who have taken on the onus of representing the authentic African culture of oral poetry have blended that tradition with their modern consciousness to reach a larger audience.

It must be noted that ‘performances mark identities, bend time, reshape and adorn the body, and tell stories’ and these new-age poets are here to tell those stories about Africa and their experiences as we can notice in the performances of Hafsat Abdullahi, Nomfundo Khambule, Onome Enakerakpor, Bothale Boikanyo and Xabiso Vili (Schechner 28). Even though it was believed that with ‘the spread of writing, however, the traditional poet may be becoming more of a performer, treasured but no longer central to communal life as he once was’, still, due to the modern transformation of the form, both the content and the performance have equal priority (Jones et al. 1). Spoken word poetry is more open than the written form of poetry because it allows diversity. As the performer performs a piece of his or her poetry, they try to communicate the meaning of their works even more clearly so as to avoid the ambiguity that surrounds the written form. While in a written form the creator has no control over the production of the meaning of his or her text, in the oral poetic tradition or spoken word poetry, the poet has scope to easily communicate the message directly to the audience. In spoken word poetry, every aspect of the performance bears meaning, either in a symbolic form or directly, which contributes to enhancing the meaning of the work. It is high time that we ‘have to liberate our understanding of the term poetry from the constraint of words or the specific order in which they are arranged so that we can catch something of the more dynamic process of poesis’ (Okpewho 8).