Music

Nigeria has been called "the heart of African music" because of its role in the development of West African highlife and palm-wine music, which fuses native rhythms with techniques imported from the Congo for the development of several popular styles that were unique to Nigeria, like apala, fuji, jùjú, and Yo-pop. Nigerian music were traditionally played in groups and bands, highly instrumental including the likes of drums, brass, flutes, fiddles and xylophones.

Music in Nigeria was (still in some parts and cultures) used to mark occasions such as marriages and funerals, used as work songs, maintain royal traditions e.g. waking the chief, communicating meal times and other information. Traditional Nigerian music is rhythmic and spiritual in nature devoted to the Orisha, while the men played away on their instruments and bellow chants and choruses, women would dance as if in a trance, claimed to be possessed by some character. Nigerian musicians are now more diverse and have created their own styles of U.S hip-hop and Jamaican reggae.

Nigeria's musical output has achieved international acclaim not only in the fields of folk and popular music including the likes of King Sunny Ade & the African Beats, 2face Idibia, but also Western art music written by composers such as Fela Sowande.