Article

The On-Air Musicologist: Broadcasting Nigerian Art Music on Radio in Contemporary Nigeria

Olaoluwa Marvelous Ayokunmi

Published in: Ethnomusicology Ireland 11 (2026)
Pages: 80-94 | Published Online: 19 June 2026
https://doi.org/10.64208/UEQV6694

Abstract

Since Nigeria’s radio deregulation in the 1990s, Afrobeats, hip-hop, and gospel have dominated broadcasting, sidelining Western classical music and Nigerian Art Music (NAM) as elitist and inaccessible. Yet these traditions remain vital for pedagogy, heritage preservation, and cultural advocacy. This autoethnographic article reflects on seven years of my practice as an “on-air musicologist”, broadcasting NAM and Western classical repertoire on Nigerian radio. Drawing on programmes such as Indigenous Classics, African Indigenous Classics, Let Music Reign, for example. I examine how broadcasting can function simultaneously as pedagogy, cultural transmission, and entertainment. Employing practice-based research and reflexive ethnography, the article highlights strategies for repertoire curation and audience engagement while addressing challenges of commercialisation, elitist perceptions, and inadequate institutional support. Situated within wider African musicology debates, it concludes that radio, when deliberately positioned as cultural mediation, becomes a site of ethnomusicological practice capable of sustaining NAM in a global media environment.

Keywords: Nigerian art music, broadcasting, autoethnography, radio, indigenous classics, cultural mediation

Author: Olaoluwa Marvelous Ayokunmi | ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-6072-1837