Contextualizing Yoruba Socio-Cultural Principles on Inter-personal Relationships in the Nigerian Popular Music: A Case study of Asake’s Lonely at the Top

In the field of African musicology, in Nigeria, curiosity has sprang up in the area of popular music study and hip-pop music in particular. This has been without adequate interest in the place of culture, society and language influences on the music. This study therefore, focuses on highlighting the socio-cultural principles on inter-personal relationships which has been contextualized into the text content of popular music in Nigeria, using Asake’s ‘Lonely at the Top’ as case study. This study relies on using Asake’s discography as primary sources of data collection; while the secondary method involves sourcing for relevant literature as references. The research findings reveals that, the text content of the song ‘Lonely At the Top’ by Asake, has shown that Asake’s creativity was influenced by his Yoruba cultural background and the society. This is obviously noticed through the use of Yoruba mixed with English language which is influenced by different Yoruba aphorism, axioms and proverbs which are different form of words of wisdom usually by the elders that informed the socio-cultural principles guiding inter-personal relationships within the Yoruba society. This research concludes that the composition of the song ‘Lonely at the Top’ by Asake is a reflection of Yoruba cultural identity in him, contextualized through the lyrics of his music.