实战口语情景对话 第988期:Music in Nigeria 尼日利亚音乐

Todd: So Abidemi, you're from Nigeria. Can you talk a little bit about the music scene in your country?
托德：阿比德米，你来自尼日利亚。你能介绍一下尼日利亚乐坛吗？

Abidemi: Yes. Nigeria is just amazing now in terms of music and even in the past we've had and we still do have great music, great musicians. We love to party just as much as we love to eat, there's nothing that Nigerians loves more than parties. We love to have a good time. So of course, music plays an important role in that. One of the music that we have now is like fusion. A mix of old traditional Nigerian music and instruments with more Western Hip Hop, R&B kind of sound and even reggae and Jamaican music and some Spanish too mixing with it.
阿比德米：可以。尼日利亚的音乐非常精彩，尼日利亚以前有伟大的音乐和音乐家，当然现在也是如此。我们喜欢派对，就像我们喜欢美食一样。没有比派对更让尼日利亚人喜欢的了。我们喜欢享受美好时光。当然，音乐在这当中发挥着重要的作用。现在尼日利亚盛行的其中一种音乐形式是合成音乐。就是将尼日利亚传统音乐和乐器与西方的嘻哈音乐、R&B音乐、甚至是雷鬼乐、牙买加音乐和西班牙音乐混合在一起。

Todd: Oh wow, that sounds like a nice mix.
托德：哇哦，听起来是种不错的混合。

Abidemi: It is actually and because we love to dance as well, it's something that you can move your body to, you can dance to, and also some ballads as well, that makes people think. In the past, Nigerian artists were either they sang traditional songs which they sang in the languages that we had in Nigeria or they sang in English for the most part because we do have many languages. So if you want to reach a wider audience, you needed to sing in English. But these days the interesting thing is many people are mixing.
阿比德米：没错，因为我们也喜欢跳舞，所以这种音乐可以让身体跟随节奏舞动，当然也可以混合民谣乐。以前，尼日利亚音乐家或者用尼日利亚的各种语言演唱传统歌曲，或者在大多数情况下用英语演唱歌曲，因为我们有很多种语言。如果你想扩大听众群，那就需要用英语演唱。不过最近许多人开始混合使用语言。

Todd: Oh, nice.
托德：哦，不错。

Abidemi: They will sing a little bit in English as well as in their ... mostly in their native language which makes for very interesting mixes because then people that do understand that language, it attracts them to it. And it becomes more our own thing in our own country.
阿比德米：歌词里会有一些英语，不过大部分都是母语，这会创造出非常有意思的混合，人们在理解了歌词以后，就会被歌曲所吸引。这成为了我们国家独有的特色。Todd: So what are the languages that are mixed with English?托德：通常会将哪些语言和英语混合使用？

Abidemi: For example in my region, I speak Yoruba, so Yoruba, they use a lot of Yoruba. They use Igbo language too, it's from the southeastern part of Nigeria. And there's also Pidgin, Pidgin is a kind of ... it's Nigerian English or ... I know in other parts of west Africa they use Pidgin as well. But it's more like slangy English, I would say. So there's a mixture of that. So the music becomes more Africanized, Nigerianized, if that's a word. So it makes it much more our own thing and people enjoy it. Yeah, and it's really good. So new artists now, they're doing that and one of the results of that is it's more accessible actually to people that are not Nigerians. So a lot of people download Nigerian music from YouTube. For example, there's D'Banj. He's an artist that's gone over to the United States and he sings with Kanye.
阿比德米：我家乡说约鲁巴语，所以歌词里会使用很多约鲁巴语。当然也会使用伊格博语，这是尼日利亚东南部地区使用的一种语言。另外还有皮钦语，这相当于尼日利亚式英语，我知道西非一些地区也使用皮钦语。这种语言更像是充满俚语的英语。人们会混合使用语言。这样音乐就会更加非洲化和尼日利亚化。这使音乐充满了尼日利亚色彩，所以人们很喜欢。当然这样做也很好。现在的一些新晋音乐人都会这么做，这种做法的其中一个结果就是使音乐更易被尼日利亚以外的人所接受。有许多人在优兔网上下载尼日利亚音乐。比如D'Banj这名音乐人，他打入了美国市场，而且和坎耶合作了歌曲。

Todd: Oh, wow!
托德：哇哦！

Abidemi: Yeah, and some big top Hip Hop artist in the United States. There was a guy who they used one of his songs in one of the American — Black American movies in the States as well.
阿比德米：对，他还和一些美国顶级嘻哈音乐人进行了合作。一部美国黑人电影使用了另一名尼日利亚音乐人的歌曲。

Todd: Oh, cool!
托德：真酷！

Abidemi: And he got a lot of exposure through that. So our artist are, yeah, they become more more famous it seems like. And they're leading other areas of Africa too.
阿比德米：这名音乐人也因此增加了曝光率。可以说，我们国家的音乐人现在越来越出名。他们领先于非洲其他地区的音乐人。

Todd: Well I'll be sure to put some YouTube clips up with the interview so people can check it out.
托德：我一定会把优兔网上的视频片段和这段采访一起放到网站上，这样人们就能欣赏音乐了。

Abidemi: Please do.
阿比德米：请这么做吧。