Rárà: The Chanted Praise Genre
The secular chanting genre of praise, who the rárà singer is and how the performance is shaped by the audience paying for it, and the accuracy that makes rárà more than flattery.
intermediatehigh·
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The secular chanting genre of praise, who the rárà singer is and how the performance is shaped by the audience paying for it, and the accuracy that makes rárà more than flattery.
The Yorùbá wey dem quote, the proverbs, oríkì, ẹsẹ Ifá, word list headwords, Odù names and citations dey exactly as the corpus record dem, for every language.
Rárà na di praise chant genre wey no join bodi with religion: na professional work, wey dem dey sing give patron wey dey ground and wey dem expect make e pay, and dem dey perform am for palace, ceremony, and gathering wherever person wey reach to praise dey. Na dis genre most people dey mean when dem imagine Yoruba praise singer, and na im travel pass enter modern Nigerian life, since di party and event "hype" performance of today na im direct commercial descendant.
Di way Rárà relate with oríkì almost resemble di way ìjálá dey do: e be style of chanting wey dey use oríkì as raw material. Di praise names, epithets, and lineage history wey dem treat for yoruba-oriki na wetin rárà singer dey chant. Wetin make am be rárà instead of anoda tin na di way dem dey deliver am, and di way dem classify di genres by voice expression wey dem describe for yoruba-oral-genre-system apply here just like everywhere.
Dem group Rárà among di forms wey start as secular, alongside oríkì orílẹ̀, ẹkún ìyàwó, and etíyerí wey be di satirical chant, different from transitional forms like ìjálá and ẹ̀sà wey start inside worship, and frozen forms like ọfọ̀ and ìyẹ̀rẹ̀ Ifá . E no get any religious connection and e dey absorb modern influence without wahala . For place where genre get sacred counterpart, di one wey match rárà na Ṣàngó pípè, wey be di invocatory chant of Ṣàngó, and di two of dem relate for form.
E also dey thoroughly flexible. Rárà belong to di forms wey di artist dey create on im own without too much restriction, and di text as dem actually deliver am na di audience wey dey front di performer and im own creativity dey shape am . Two performances no be di same text, and none of dem be di main authentic version pass di oda.
For region level, dem associate rárà well well with Ọ̀yọ́, and dem describe di bridal genre ẹkún ìyàwó as branch from am, na why ẹkún ìyàwó dominate di Ọ̀yọ́-speaking area . Barber record say for some usage, dem dey call di bride chant rárà ìyàwó instead of ẹkún ìyàwó . Di two genres share their material and plenty of their style.
Dem dey call di performer onírárà, person wey dey do rárà, and for di wider vocabulary of praise performance, dem also dey call am akéwì, and for court chroniclers wey attach to royal households, arọ́kin. Di corpus file yoruba-oriki treat dose titles and wetin Crowther record for 1852 about di ológbò as royal counsellor wey also act as chronicler.
Normally, onírárà na professionals or semi-professionals, wey dey waka from place to place, and dem dey chant di genre for kings, for rich people, and for guests for ceremony. Di money matter no be by-the-way tin to di art. Di person wey dem praise dey reward di performer, and dis one dey shape wetin dem dey talk, how long e go reach, and who dem go praise next when bigger person enter. Barber description of how oríkì performer dey change subject when more important person enter di performance space na account of dis same economics .
Gender matter for dis genre no simple and di sources no totally agree. Wetin Barber find for Òkukù na say na women dey mostly do oríkì performance . To chant rárà for kings and rich people na wetin dem often describe as men work, while di bridal branch wey be ẹkún ìyàwó na strictly for women. Di safest statement na say both men and women dey share di material, while specific performance roles get gender based on occasion and locality, and dem treat dis question well for file 13.
Di simple view about praise poetry na say na flattery, and say payment dey spoil am. Dat view no fit survive when person examine di texts.
Praise chanting for dis tradition closer to accurate naming pass compliment. Dem dey see di performer of oríkì orílẹ̀ as custodian of di history of di lineage wey e dey chant, and to perform praise of a lineage dey pull strong emotion from descendants wey dey ground . And wetin dem dey chant, dem no dey filter am make e for sweet to hear. Di case wey get document pass na di praise poetry of Ẹ̀ṣọ́ Ìkòyí, di Ìkòyí warriors.
Ẹni tí kò mọ̀kan mọ̀kan A ní Onílkòyí rèé kólé A ní Onílkòyí rèé jalè Ìkòyí ò jalè rí Ìkòyí ò kólé Bí wọ́n bá rógun Tí ẹ̀gbọ́n bá mérú Àbúrò á sì mèrù
The one who knows nothing will say the Ìkòyí have gone out to burgle, will say the Ìkòyí have gone out to steal. Ìkòyí has never stolen. Ìkòyí does not burgle. When they meet with war, as the elder brother takes the captives, the younger takes the property.
Translator: Gboyega Kolawole
Yoruba text and English translation as Kolawole print am, wey dem credit to Duroriike; di literal gloss na from di compiler of dis corpus .
Di whole point of di passage dey for di last three lines, and na joke wey sharp like blade. Di chant deny strongly say di Ìkòyí no dey steal, and come describe exactly how dem dey pack everything, with di excuse say to take sometin for war no be stealing. Kolawole read dis one as oxymoronic structure where di honour of di lineage root inside dishonour, and e note say di Ìkòyí na soldiers of fortune wey dey start war when war no dey ground, just to get loot .
Di device wey di last two lines rely on na tonal contrast. Dem write Mérú and mèrù almost di same way but dia tone different, one mean to carry slave go and di other one mean to carry property go . So, di parallel lines almost sound di same but get different meaning, and na from this pairing di chant take dey get im rhythm and im wit. English language no fit do this kind thing at all: di translation must use two words wey no relate where Yoruba language use wetin sound like di same word twice. Na this one be di clearest single example for this section on wetin yoruba-phonology-and-tone mean wen e talk say tone dey lexical.
Notes on di source text. Di Yoruba as dem print am for di source carry tone marking wey no consistent and e get some clear typesetting problem, and di diacritics wey dey up na di compiler own arrangement to normalise di printed text. Dem present di forms mérú and mèrù like this because na wetin di source own explanation about di tonal contrast require.
Di main point to understand rárà: di performer no fit leave these lines comot. Dem dey among di established repertoire and e must not divert from am, and di audience no dey take am say na insult simply because dem belong to di corpus . This genre wey dem dey pay to praise still dey force di praiser to talk wetin no sweet to hear, because that side wey no sweet na part of who di lineage be.
Wetin Kolawole write about di relationship between performer and audience na di most useful one wey dey ground. For some context, di artist dey like puppet wey di audience dey control with string, because di audience sabi di custom well-well and dem go feel say di performance no correct if e divert without reason, and e dey under dia mercy . Di audience na both respondent and judge .
Na dat one dey bring di main difficulty for this genre. Di text already familiar to everybody wey dey there, so nothing new dey di content, yet dem still expect heavy originality from di artist . Wetin e fit change na selection, sequence, expansion, and how e handle di rhetoric. Im ability to make di familiar corpus feel new during performance na wetin dey make am stand out . This one na di same insight wey Barber get, but from di other side: di fragments dey fixed and dem fit quote am, and na dat exact thing dey make fluid performance possible .
Rárà no die, e just monetise pass before. Modern Nigerian hype performance for party and event, scholars don analyse am say na direct commercial descendant of oríkì praise tradition, wey mix traditional aesthetics with money purpose . Di MC wey dey chant guest lineage for Lagos wedding, and di artist wey dey hail wealthy patron for middle of song, dey do clear version of wetin onírárà bin dey do, under new condition of payment and publicity. File 14 follow di trace enter recorded music.
The chant a Yoruba bride performs in the days before she leaves her father's house, its three-part structure, the social situation that produces it, and what she actually says about the marriage ahead of her.
How Yoruba oral artists are trained, which genres are open to whom, how gender divides the field, how performers are paid, and the named artists the scholarship documents.
The hunters' chant associated with Ògún, its vocal manner, the ìjálá artist and how he is judged, the contest setting, and what the chant does as self-portrait and as praise of animals.
How proverbs behave when they are embedded in chanted and sung genres rather than used in conversation, and why a quoted proverb changes what a performance is doing.
The dùndún as a literary instrument rather than a technical curiosity: oríkì and proverbs delivered on the drum, what the drummer composes from, and how drummed, sung and spoken text relate in one performance.
How Yoruba verbal art is classified into named genres by vocal manner rather than subject, who performs each and on what occasion, and why the European category "oral literature" fits the material imperfectly.