Musical Borrowing and Cultural Hybridity in Contemporary Igbo Highlife: An Analytical Study

This study analyses musical borrowing and cultural hybridity in contemporary Igbo Highlife music, examining how artists from the South East geopolitical zone selectively incorporate elements from hip-hop, Afrobeats, electronic dance music, and traditional Igbo musical idioms to produce hybrid musical identities. Highlife in its Igbo variant has undergone continuous transformation since its commercial emergence in the 1950s; however, the specific mechanisms, aesthetic outcomes, and cultural implications of contemporary hybridisation practices have received limited systematic analytical attention. This research purposively selects 25 Igbo Highlife recordings released between 2019 and 2024, applying multi-parameter musical analysis examining melodic borrowing, rhythmic layering, instrumental substitution, linguistic mixing in lyrics, and aesthetic code-switching. The analytical framework integrates cultural hybridity theory, style analysis, and Igbo aesthetics scholarship. Supplementary qualitative data are gathered through interviews with 10 Igbo Highlife artists and 5 music producers regarding their creative motivations and audience targeting decisions. The study situates contemporary Igbo Highlife hybridity within the postcolonial dynamics of Nigerian popular music and the commercial pressures of the streaming economy. Findings will produce a typology of borrowing strategies and assess their implications for Igbo musical identity. Keywords: Highlife, musical borrowing, cultural hybridity, Igbo music, South East Nigeria.