African Philosophy: A Link Between Modern and Traditional African Poetry,
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Date
2014
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Publisher
Journal of Education, Humanities and Sciences, Volume 3 Nos. 1 & 2, 2014:27-44
Abstract
This article argues that traditional and modern praise poetry do relate. This relationship is from the fact that the two are similar in several aspects ranging from content to form. Only one similarity among them, similarity in philosophy, is discussed here. The article, therefore, presents how different kinds of African poetry of different generations can never diverge totally from African philosophy. That is to say, both traditional and modern praise poetry carry similar beliefs; how Africans see things is viewed in similar way in the two kinds of poetry. Traditional praise poetry used here is Bahaya’s praise poetry, ebyebugo, and the praises seen in Basukuma songs while modern poetry used here is Bongo Flavor praise poetry. Bahaya and Basukuma are people who live in North – Western and Lake Zone in Tanzania. Bongo Flavor is Tanzanian youth music which is characterized by self praises. Therefore, we can simply say this article picks Tanzanian traditional and modern praise poetry as samples of African traditional and modern poetry respectively.