When Vulgarism Comes through Popular music: An Investigation of Slackness in Zimdancehall Music

Abstract

In Zimbabwe, popular music, particularly the Zimdancehall music genre, has become a cultural site where Shona moral values clash with explicit sexual lyrical content despite a censorship regime in the country. This article examines the nature and cultural consequences of the moral decadence that emerges in popular Zimdancehall song lyrics by several musicians. The article illustrates how vulgar language popularises Zimdancehall songs in unheralded ways that foster identities laced with cultural ambivalences that may portray the artists as both famous and depraved. This qualitative study does textual and content analysis of 11 purposively sampled songs with sex terms to elucidate the cultural inconsistencies in Zimdancehall song narratives. Analysis is informed by the Neuro-Psycho-Social theory, which recognises how socio-cultural restrictions are challenged by an emerging ghetto culture like new wine in …