Nigeria: Reinventing Society Through Gospel Music - Music has great and many kinds of influence over people. It is water or acid for the soul, depending on what is produced. It is an extremely versatile means of communication. It is capable of exploiting all the acoustic features that are used in verbal communication. Moreover, it does so in an explicit and structured way, which makes it an interesting and useful window into human communication in general. [All Africa.com music]

Gopsel music is one of the biggest selling genres in Africa. Week in week out, churches seem to learn new songs during service and find new voices and messages to praise God. Gospel music is also probably played more than other genres. In Ghana, where I am from, apart from religious functions, it is played at parties (yes, all kinds of parties), funerals, social events and workshops. Esther Wahome's Kuna Dawa is still on the playlist of many disc jockeys in East Africa, and the lyrics are straight up religious.

Neglecting the religious conflicts that have been giving press houses field days, Nigeria is a very religious country and it shows in the music. Great artistes like Sammy Okposo and Princess Ifeoma have made it to the Kora's and performed in many countries across West Africa. Other secular artistes have joined the gospel bandwagon with their own odes to God and praise songs.

Gospel music has become one of the premier tools to win souls for Christ. Many churches are releasing albums through their choirs and Nigeria with its millions of people is leading the charge. These same church choirs are those leading various social campaigns, singing patriotic songs on holidays and promoting jingles and messages on our television screens. The recent anti-corruption contest in Namibia was mostly competed for by church choirs.

Music is what feelings sound like and like water for the soul. I believe gospel music especially has a strategic position to create a national orientation towards peace, goodwill, development and excellence. Our secular musicians sing about love all the time, but fail to talk about loving your neighbour and our gospel musicians sing about religion and loving God all the time, they also fail to sing about loving your neighbour. It is easier for the gospel musicians to adjust and we hope this genre doesn't focus on making money and selling records like what is bedevilling the music industry these days. Religious bodies, production houses, church choirs and the like must re-dedicate themselves to fighting the social vices in our communities and reinventing our societies for the betterment of our people.