Tope Alabi’s Aboru, Aboye Abosise: A Case of Influence and Subversion of an African Sacred Text

Tope Alabi, a Yoruba Christian Gospel artiste in Nigeria attracted critical newspaper and social media reviews to one of her stage performances because of heavy reliance on the Yoruba traditional oral resource to enrich her song. Her use of Aboru Aboye Abosise, a concept found in Ifa corpus, an African oral sacred text associated with Orunmila, the Yoruba god of wisdom and divination has been interpreted as an affirmation of her belief in the African traditional religion. This paper re-examined the context and the meaning of Aboru Aboye Abosise in the song. It further attempted to deconstruct the popular reading of the work, with a view to and establishing that instead of affirming a belief in traditional mode of worship, the song represents a case of subversion of the original reading of the traditional sacred oral text. The study adopted Influence Theory as a tool of analysis. Influence theory is a systematic study of formal models of communicative influence of one person or group on another person or group. It was discovered that Tope Alabi’s song derived its strength and meaning through the appropriation of the Yoruba metaphors, proverbs and folk-lore to project her Christian world-views instead of encouraging the traditional practice of offering sacrifice to God.