Benin Culture

Benin has played an important role in the African music scene, producing one of the biggest stars to come out of the continent in Angélique Kidjo. Post-independence, the country was home to a vibrant and innovative music scene, where native folk music combined with Ghanaian highlife, French cabaret, American rock, funk and soul, and Congolese rumba. Ignacio Blazio Osho was perhaps the most influential musician of this period, alongside Pedro Gnonnas y sus Panchos, Les Volcans de la Capitale and Picoby Band d'Abomey. Pedro produced the song Feso Jaiye, which became a hit and was performed by many bands at the 2nd All-Africa Games in 1973.

Beninese literature had a strong oral tradition long before French became the dominant language. Felix Couchoro wrote the first Beninese novel, L'Esclave in 1929.

Local languages are used as the languages of instruction in elementary schools, with French only introduced after several years. Beninois languages are generally transcribed with a separate letter for each speech sound (phoneme), rather than using diacritics as in French or digraphs as in English. This includes Beninese Yoruba, which in Nigeria is written with both diacritics and digraphs. For instance, the mid vowels written é è, ô, o in French are written e, ɛ, o, ɔ in Beninese languages, whereas the consonants written ng and sh or ch in English are written ŋ and c. However, digraphs are used for nasal vowels and the labial-velar consonants kp and gb, as in the name of the Fon language Fon gbe, and diacritics are used as tone marks. French-language publications, a mixture of French and Beninois orthographies may be seen.

Benin Art

A common consensus among historians is that the art of Benin served to narrate events and achievements, actual or mythical, which occurred in the past. It was grounded on traditional values and religious beliefs and displayed iconographic affinities. Although only made popular after the Punitive Expedition in the 19th century, Benin art has been in existence since at least 500 BCE (Andrea & Overfield, 2005). They used their art to depict religious, social and cultural issues that were central to their beliefs such as ceremonial weapons, religious objects and masks (Blackmun, 1988).

The culture of the Benin people was that of religious sentiment which can be seen in a lot of their art. They viewed their kings or obas as unearthly, in the sense that they were closer to the gods than the average human was. In a popular story, Ewuare, a ruler in the 15th and 16th century, goes to the river and steals the beads that belong to Olokun, god of the waters. He brings them back to Benin and in the process establishes the palace of the oba as the earthly counterpart and the kind of dry land (Ben- Amos, 1980). Stories and events like these inspired many of the beliefs and art of the early Benin people.

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