“Sing and be Possessed”: A Reflective Practitioner’s Perspective on the Impacts of Music on Jinn-Human Relations

Music in many West African Muslim contexts is not a neutral aesthetic phenomenon but a spiritually charged medium through which permeable boundaries between the human and unseen worlds are negotiated, violated, and potentially restored. This paper examines a case of a thirty-five-year-old woman allegedly afflicted by jinn possession attributed to her habitual consumption of secular music, using Driscoll's model of structured reflection. It opens with public confessions by Nigerian musicians 9ice and Terry G about the devil's dominion over secular music, providing a popular-culture entry point into the intersection of ethnomusicology, hip-hop linguistics, Islamic demonology, and the anthropology of possession. The study contributes to scholarship on musical linguistics, Islamic therapeutic practices, the moral economy of sound, and gendered dimensions of jinn affliction in postcolonial Nigeria.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This study utilizes Driscoll's (1994, 2007) model of structured reflection, based on Terry Burton's core questions, namely: what (the situation), so what (what was learned), and now what (the action plan), to examine an aspect of fieldwork observations at a Nigerian Islamic exorcism center. The case involves a thirty-five-year-old lady allegedly afflicted by jinn possession attributed to her habitual consumption of secular music. The paper examines the ontological, theological, and socio-cultural dimensions of jinn-human relations mediated through musical practice. It opens with the provocative public confessions of two prominent Nigerian musicians, 9ice and Terry G, whose self-reported claims about the devil’s dominion over secular music provide a compelling popular-culture entry point into this under-theorized intersection of ethnomusicology, hip-hop linguistics, Islamic demonology, and the anthropology of possession. This piece argues that music in many West African Muslim contexts is not a neutral aesthetic phenomenon but a spiritually charged medium through which permeable boundaries between the human and unseen worlds are negotiated, violated, and potentially restored. The study contributes to growing scholarship on musical linguistics, Islamic therapeutic practices, the moral economy of sound, and the gendered dimensions of jinn affliction in postcolonial Nigeria.