Conference Agenda

Indigenous Christian denominations in Nigeria preserve and transmit theological traditions through embodied ritual practices by which musical performance plays a central role in shaping how spiritual authority, leadership and communal belonging are recognised. While music is widely acknowledged as an inseparable part to Yorùbá Indigenous Christianity , scholarship has largely focused on theology, prophecy and institutional history but treating music as expressive accompaniment rather than as a constitutive mechanism of authority. Consequently, a key question remains unresolved: how does sacred musical practice produce and regulate spiritual authority within Yorùbá Indigenous Christianity?

This paper investigates both the repertoire itself and its embodied performance and how musical structure, participation and circulation operate as mechanisms through which ecclesiastical hierarchy and communal belonging are constituted within Yorùbá Indigenous Christianity. Through musical elements and embodied performances, Seraphim Songs shape how holiness, obedience and spiritual discipline are enacted and understood within Yorùbá Indigenous Christianity. This is an ethnomusicological study that focuses on the Songs of the Seraphim, as a distinctive sacred repertoire which lies at the heart of Yorùbá Indigenous Christian worshipers. While many C&S congregations share related repertories, the ESOCS maintains a distinctive organisational hierarchies and liturgical protocols that shape who may initiate the lead or authorise particular songs.

By examining the Songs of the Seraphim across different order of services and ritual contexts, this study demonstrates how sacred sound operates as a key mechanism through which the ESOCS sustains theological independence, negotiates continuity and change and constructs hierarchical structure within a rapidly transforming Christian landscape in Nigeria.

This paper examines the dynamic soundscapes of worship found in postcolonial African churches, conceptualizing them as deeply connected personal and communal expressions. In many twenty-first-century congregations throughout sub-Saharan Africa, the church has become more than just a spiritual hub; it serves as a place for physical and emotional healing. Within these sacred environments, worshippers create a rich tapestry of musical and non-musical sounds—sometimes intentionally, other times instinctively—during their services.

This study dives into the world of vocal sounds, artistic expressions, rhythmic beats, and onomatopoeic expressions, examining how activities like music ministry, handclapping, prayer, screaming, and groaning come to life, grow stronger, and persist during religious ceremonies. Based on recent ethnographic research and phenomenological analysis conducted from 2023 to 2025 in various congregations, the paper looks at how these sonic expressions are sparked within ritual settings and how they influence worshippers' spiritual, emotional, and psychological journeys.

By focusing on how sounds emerge and their effects, I propose that both established liturgical frameworks and spontaneous sonic expressions create rich layers of sound that can be both cathartic and therapeutic. These intricate soundscapes foster shared emotional experiences that help people connect with one another, find personal release, and feel a sense of the divine. This study emphasizes the complex relationship between how we hear, think, feel, and embody our emotions in shaping religious experiences. Ultimately, it adds to larger discussions in sound studies, ethnomusicology, and African religious studies by showing how sound-based practices create intricate, culturally relevant meanings in modern worship settings.

Across different cultures, decolonization is often interpreted through literal, moral, anagogical, and allegorical frameworks that parallel Biblical hermeneutics. Within African sacred music, literal approaches often imply a total rejection of elements deemed “inauthentic” or Western in origin. Recent publications on decolonization by Agawu (2025) and Taiwo (2022), foreground a primary danger of such literalism– the reinforcement of essentialist practices that rigidly distinguish African and Western practices while ignoring lived realities in contemporary societies. This essay will extend current debates on literal decolonization through a case study of the 2026 Sexagesima mass at the Holy Cross Catholic church of Kenya, which primarily incorporated Gregorian chants during the liturgy. The Holy Cross Church is affiliated with the Society of Saint Pius X founded in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to preserve the traditional Roman liturgy in the wake of Vatican II’s reforms. Following a brief historical overview of chant transmission in East Africa from the nineteenth century, I will juxtapose the rationales that literalist perspectives often invoke to justify the decolonization of Western repertoires in HCCK’s liturgy with the distinctive liturgical functions that Gregorian chants fulfilled during the Sexagesima mass. Rather than providing a definitive position on whether Gregorian chants should be eradicated or preserved, this essay seeks to illuminate the complexity of liturgical preferences among Kenyan Catholics that risk being flattened by literal decolonization approaches.