Email this article LINGUISTIC AND PERSUASIVE TECHNIQUES IN CONSTRUCTING DIVINE ENTITLEMENT IN NIGERIAN POP MUSIC
(1) University of South Africa, South Africa
(2) Walter Sisulu University, South Africa
(*) Corresponding Author
Abstract
In recent years, Nigerian popular music has moved away from narratives about earning success through hard work. Instead, it now focuses on the narratives that success comes from divine blessings or entitlement. This study explores how Nigerian pop artists use persuasive strategies and linguistic techniques to construct and legitimise expectations of financial breakthroughs as a divine right. Through a textual analysis of Syno’s “Money Fit Me” and Adekunle Gold’s “Pick Up”, the study applied Aristotle’s Rhetorical Appeals, Cialdini’s Principles of Persuasion, and Critical Discourse Analysis to look at how narratives of divine entitlement are shaped. The analysis revealed that the lyrics of Syno focus on communal validation through social proof and reciprocity, demonstrating success as a common expectation, whereas the lyrics of Adekunle Gold employ strong emotional appeal and fear of being left behind, so success appears pressing and deeply personal. These findings show how Nigerian pop music reinforces social perceptions that spiritual devotion and material success are interrelated, and they shape the way people perceive wealth, faith, and upward social mobility in a challenging socio-economic situation. This study contributes to the broader debates on the nexus of language, religion, and popular culture and how they interact with advancing contemporary aspirations in Nigeria.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Adam, M. (2021). Sentiment (ality) as a means of persuasion: On the thin ice of manipulation in Protestant sermons. Discourse and Interaction, 14(2), 5-23. https://doi.org/10.5817/DI2021-2-5
Adamo, D. T. (2021). “The African Background of the Prosperity Gospel.” Theologia Viatorum, 45(1), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.4102/tv.v45i1.71
Adekunle Gold. (2017). Pick Up [Lyrics]. On Pick Up [Single]. Spotify. https://open.spotify.com/track/6dlqmyMVe5JN8WRPbY6BPJ
Agbo, M. (2010). The linguistic behaviour of Nigerian hip hop and rap artistes: Language alternation strategies of Nigerian hip hop and rap artistes. LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. https://www.amazon.com/Linguistic-Behaviour-Nigerian-Hip-Artistes/dp/3838374762
Akinola, A. J. (2019). Pragmatics of musical rhetoric in the post-2015 elections in Nigeria. Journal of Language and Education, 5(3), 11-23. https://doi.org/10.17323/jle.2019.7338
Are, O. B. (2018). The rhetoric of self-adulation in contemporary Nigerian popular music: A psychological perspective. Imbizo, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.25159/2078-9785/4212
Babbie, E. (2020). The practice of social research (15th ed.). Cengage Learning. https://books.google.co.za/books?id=KrGeygEACAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Barron, J. R. (2022). Is the prosperity gospel, gospel? An examination of the prosperity and productivity gospels in African Christianity. Conspectus: The Journal of the South African Theological Seminary, 33(1), 88-103. https://doi.org/10.54725/conspectus.2022.1.6
Brown, S., Matthew, H., & Michel, B. (2020). Music enhances empathic engagement with characters in films. Music and Arts in Action, 7(2), 3-16. https://musicandartsinaction.net/index.php/maia/article/view/195/198
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge. http://www.kyoolee.net/GENDER_TROUBLE_-_Preface_-_Butler.pdf
Chen, L., Yan X., & Yuan H. (2024). Social media use in the workplace: The role of social comparison in negative behaviours. Acta Psychologica, 243, Article 104144. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2024.104144
Christiansen, P. (2021). From the subliminal to the ridiculing: How U.S. campaign ads use music to evoke four basic and two compound emotions. In J. Deaville, S. Tan, and R. Rodman (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of music and advertising (pp. 661–677). Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190691240.013.19
Cialdini, R. B. (2001). Principles of persuasion. eBrand Media Publication, 3(7), 2580–2592. https://fs-lc.s3.amazonaws.com/Podcast+Transcripts/Robert+Cialdini+transcript+y79fn.pdf
Cialdini, R. B. (2006). Influence: The psychology of persuasion (Revised edition). Harper Business. https://ia800203.us.archive.org/33/items/ThePsychologyOfPersuasion/The%20Psychology%20of%20Persuasion.pdf
Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (4th ed.). Sage. https://books.google.co.za/books?id=4uB76IC_pOQC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Crusius, J., Katja C., & Thomas M. (2022). Social comparison: A review of theory, research, and applications. In D. Chadee (Ed.), Theories in social psychology (2nd ed., pp. 165–187). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781394266616.ch7
Denzin, N. K., & Yvonna S. L., eds. (2018). The SAGE Handbook of qualitative research (5th ed.). Sage. https://dl1.cuni.cz/pluginfile.php/1143325/mod
_resource/content/1/Norman%20K.%20Denzin%2C%20Yvonna%20S.%20Lincoln%20-%20The%20SAGE%20Handbook%20of%20Qualitative%20Research-SAGE%20Publications%2C%20Inc%20%282017%29.pdf
Emielu, A. (2019, November 20-23). Discourses of wealth and poverty in Nigerian hip hop music [Paper presentation]. 62nd Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, Boston, Massachusetts. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344464785_Discourses_of_Wealth_and_Poverty_in_Nigerian_Hip_hop_Music
Fairclough, N. (2013). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315834368
Gbote, E. Z., & Kgatla, S. T. (2014). Prosperity gospel: A missiological assessment. HTS Theological Studies, 70(1), 1–10. https://hts.org.za/index.php/HTS/article/view/2105
Gifford, P. (2016). Christianity, development and modernity in Africa. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190495732.001.0001
Halbesma, C. (2017). Persuasion techniques used by successful online shops: To what extent and in which manner are the seven persuasion principles of Cialdini used by the successful online shops in the Netherlands? [Master’s thesis, University of Twente]. https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/73458
Halttu, K., & Oinas-Kukkonen, H. (2021). Susceptibility to social influence strategies and persuasive system design: Exploring the relationship. Behaviour & Information Technology, 41(12), 2705–2726. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2021.1945685
Hassan, A., & Barber, S. (2021). The Effects of repetition frequency on the illusory truth effect. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 6(1), Article 38. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-021-00301-5
Henderson, E. L., Simons, D. J., & Barr, D. J. (2021). The trajectory of truth: A longitudinal study of the illusory truth effect. Journal of Cognition, 4(1), Article 29. https://doi.org/10.5334/joc.161
Herman, T. (2022). Ethos and pragmatics. Languages, 7(3), Article 165. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7030165
Ife, O. F., & Lovelyn, O. C. (2020). The implication of effective language use in Nigerian pop music towards a positive change management. The Creative Artist: A Journal of Theatre and Media Studies, 11(3). https://journals.ezenwaohaetorc.org/index.php/TCA/article/view/390
Inzlicht, M., Shenhav, A., & Olivola, C. Y. (2018). The effort paradox: Effort Is both costly and valued. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22(4), 337–349. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2018.01.007
Kirby, B. (2019). Pentecostalism, economics, capitalism: Putting the Protestant ethic to work. Religion, 49(4), 571–591. https://doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2019.1573767
Koelsch, S. (2014). Brain correlates of music-evoked emotions. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 15(3), 170–180. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3666
Maich, K. H. G. (2013). Reducing cognitive dissonance through effort justification: Evidence from past studies and daily experience. Western Undergraduate Psychology Journal, 1(1). https://ojs.lib.uwo.ca/index.php/wupj/article/
view/1659/1038
Mashau, T. D., & Kgatle, M. S. (2019). Prosperity gospel and the culture of greed in post-colonial Africa: Constructing an alternative African Christian theology of ubuntu. Verbum et Ecclesia, 40(1), Article a1901. https://doi.org/10.4102/ve.v40i1.1901
Mollazehi, A., Abuelezz, I., Barhamgi, M., Khan, K.M., Ali, R. (2024). Do Cialdini’s persuasion principles still influence trust and risk-taking when social engineering is knowingly possible?. In Araújo, J., de la Vara, J.L., Santos, M.Y., Assar, S. (Eds.) Research Challenges in Information Science. RCIS 2024. (Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, Vol 513, pp. 273–288). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-59465-6_17
Muhanad, A., Abuelezz, I., Khan, K., Ali, R. (2025). On how Cialdini’s persuasion principles influence individuals in the context of social engineering: A qualitative study. In Barhamgi, M., Wang, H., Wang, X. (Eds.) Web Information Systems Engineering – WISE 2024. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 15438, pp. 373–388). Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-96-0570-5_27
Murthy, D. M. L., & Ghosal, M. (2014). A study on Aristotle’s rhetoric. Research Journal of English Language and Literature, 2(4), 249–255. http://rjelal.com/2.4.14/D.%20MADHAVI%20LATHA%20MURTHY%20249-255.pdf
Ojukwu, E., Obielozie, E., & Esimone, C. (2016). Nigerian values and contemporary popular music: A new look. Ogirisi: A New Journal of African Studies, 12, 114–129. https://doi.org/10.4314/og.v12is1.7
Onanuga, P. (2021). A discursive contextualisation of Hustling in Nigerian hip-hop. Matatu, 52(2), 337-367. https://doi.org/10.1163/18757421-05202005
Oyenuga, A., & Ajewole, O. (2023). Let us dance to live: The influence of Afro-pop-music on promotion of the norms of cybercrime among young people in Nigeria. Journal of Advance Research in Social Science and Humanities, 9(4). https://doi.org/10.53555/nnssh.v9i4.1658
Petrušić, D. (2021). The cultural impact of music on society with a special emphasis on consumerism. In Popov, N. et al. (Eds.), New challenges to education: Lessons from around the world (vol. 19, pp. 138‑142). Bulgarian Comparative Education Society. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED614071.pdf
Smith, K. (2016). Max Weber and Pentecostals in Latin America: The Protestant ethic, social capital and spiritual capital [Master's thesis, Georgia State University]. CORE https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/71427463.pdf
Suls, J., & Wheeler, L. (2012). Social comparison theory. In Paul A. M. Van Lange, Arie W. Kruglanski, & E. Tory Higgins (Eds.). Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology (pp. 460–482). SAGE Publications. https://psikologi.unmuha.ac.id/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/SAGE-Social-Psychology-Program-Paul-A.-M.-Van-Lange-Arie-W.-Kruglanski-E-Tory-Higgins-Handbook-of-Theories-of-Social-Psychology_-Volume-One-SAGE-Publications-Ltd-2011.pdf#page=481
Syno. (2020). Money fit me [Lyrics]. On Money fit me [Single]. Spotify. https://open.spotify.com/track/5HD5dOIGZsWdeNIrJKQy5n
Torto, R. (2020). Aristotelian Rhetorical theory as a framework for analysing advertising texts in the print media in Ghana. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 10(3), 269–283. http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1003.02
Villata, S., Benlamine, M. S., Cabrio, E., Frasson, C., & Gandon, F. (2018). Assessing persuasion in argumentation through emotions and mental states. Proceedings of the 31st International Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society Conference (FLAIRS), 134–139. https://cdn.aaai.org/ocs/17677/17677-77714-1-PB.pdf
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24071/ijhs.v9i1.12334
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2025 Benjamin Obeghare Izu; Oyewumi Olatoye Agunbiade
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Indexed and abstracted in:
IJHS Sinta 2 Certificate (S2 = Level 2)
International Journal of Humanity Studies (IJHS) has been nationally accredited Sinta 2 by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia based on the decree No. Surat Keputusan 0173/C3/DT.05.00/2025. Validity for 5 years: Vol. 7 No. 2, 2024 till Vol. 12 No. 1, 2029.
This work is licensed under CC BY-SA.
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
p-ISSN: 2597-470X (since 31 August 2017); e-ISSN: 2597-4718 (since 31 August 2017)
Notice: The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the editorial team or publishers.
International Journal of Humanity Studies (IJHS) is a scientific journal in English published twice a year, namely in September and March, by Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.