Poetry, Performance, and Art: Udje Dance Songs of the Urhobo People (review)

Tanure Ojaide's study of the udje dance songs is the first extended book that attempts to situate this genre of popular art in its social and cultural contexts. Of all the expressive art forms of the Urhobo, a minority ethnic group in the Delta region of Nigeria, udje rhythmic dance, Ojaide argues, provides the most vibrant medium of entertainment while at the same time the songs accompanying it present a rare opportunity for a heated exchange—verbal duels in which rival contestants win prestige for their own side by denying the same attribute to the other. A well-known dialogic genre, udje documents the power of vitriolic satiric compositions as a literary expression of the contest used to build community and defend individual or group identity, and as a tool for hacking—a form of social as well as political invective. Udje is thus both constructive and transgressive because it can build positive images and it can be used offensively to fix a certain (usually negative) estimation of an opponent's character. Because Urhobo people use mental astuteness and other devices of oratory as important symbols of local creative status, pungent wit, raillery, and sarcastic jokes used in attacks launched to vanquish or to disgrace or reproach the foes become so many notches on one's belt.

Though I cannot say that this book is an unqualified success, I have to admit that the discussions of the transmission mode and of the contexts in which the udje is performed are quite informative. Udje, the production of rival communities who utilize seeing—the sight of bright attires—to accentuate their utterances, is usually enjoyed at seasonal festivals as a crucial part of a ritual event. Some songs are passed from generation to generation and learned through rote memorization and others are created spontaneously in emergency situations that often arise when a composition causes a backlash. Udje songs are therefore made with clear purposes in mind by performers often anticipating adversarial response; thus, the udje dance-event is both highly-structured and dynamic.

While the introductory parts carefully present information on the relevant aspects of Urhobo culture, the history, range, and character of the udje, the main body of the study focusing on the subject matter and themes, poetic resources, and analysis of the songs needs some serious attention. Here, Ojaide is less interested in the udje dance as spectacle per se than the udje dance as event providing the participants an opportunity to tell stories about how they view each other and themselves. From his perspective, the udje dance and the songs that accompany it are fundamentally a dramatization of status concerns. As texts, the songs are powered by polished literary devices of poetic composition, and the delivery is well-facilitated by sophisticated theatrical skills deployed by the singers. The writing is uninflated and accessible, but the presentation is not quite as stimulating as it could be, primarily because all of it requires more explanation, elaboration, and development.

Although the analytical sections of the book lack the depth and sophistication of a major study (a demanding review process at the Carolina Academic Press would have quite easily eliminated some of the embarrassing organizational muddles, incoherence, awkward grammatical constructions, and superficial readings that characterize the main body of the study), Ojaide in this book establishes the importance of the udje dance-songs quite powerfully, albeit indirectly. His book presents extremely good translations of the udje dance-songs. His translations are among the best that have ever been attempted in African oral literature; there is therefore so much material in his book for a really illuminating essay on the udje as an illustration of the widespread phenomenon in many parts of Africa where criticism is tolerated in song where it would not be elsewhere, that I see many ways in which others (an anthropologist, for example) can use his data.