A Critical Discourse Analysis of Selected Songs of Folarin Falana (Falz)

Abstract

This paper presents the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of selected songs of Folarin Falana. The study examined the linguistic features, authorial ideology and intention of the musician. The analyses were based on Fairclough’s Dialectical Relational Technique framework to CDA. The framework identified three guidelines/approaches to CDA, namely: description, interpretation and explanation. The guidelines pave way for easy analysis of the data, and also help in arriving at the findings of the study. Data for the study comprises of three songs of Falz. The selected songs are: E No Finish, Brothers’ Keeper and Talk. The songs were purposefully chosen because of the presence of some linguistic features such as: rhyme, repetition etc. in them, and also how they depict various issues of Nigerians' lives while simultaneously challenging the government by exposing their shortcomings and how they treat the citizens. The findings of this study reveal how linguistic features expose the musician ideology on leadership failure and attitude of Nigerian leaders towards the citizens, such as self-centeredness, national fund plundering, incompetence, corruption, selfishness, among others. It also exposes the power relations and lack of commitment of the Nigerian leaders to the national cause.