Identity Construction as Global Discourse in Musical Tracks of Akeeb Kareem and Burna Boy

Identity construction, that is, the shaping of values, beliefs and practices influenced by the cultural system of certain society and individual has been a hot-bed ideological issue of universal concern for years. Sizeable amount of research interests on racial discrimination exist from the rather narrow end of literary criticism. A systematized scrutiny of musical artistic expression of identity construction for meaningful symbolic behaviour is, therefore, necessary in the bid to examine the discourse interpretative tools of the linguistic elements and symbolic representations of identity construction in the musical orientations of Akeeb Kareem and Burna Boy. Fairclough’s social model of CDA is deployed for the musical excerpts that were descriptively annotated in Systemic Functional Grammatical terms. Findings revealed echoes of black’s negotiations, grammar of pronominal references, strategic reinforcement through pidginized discourse marker, concept of superior race, projecting racial discriminations and metaphors of symbolic representation. These, amongst others, serve as lexical and discursive elements of identity construction in the selected musical tracks. Identity is constructed by language, and musical artistes, representing their various psycho-social groups, establish their identity by how they choose to use language in interactions and experiences. It is axiomatic that the English, along with its pidgin variety, has become a global lingual franca for 2 different purposes in private and public spaces in the Nigerian second language (L) situations. Such provisions not only facilitate policy formulation for rewarding nation building enterprises but are also useful in the field of applied English linguistics emphasising musical cum identity discourses.