Yorùbá ? Ronú: Tradition, Youth and Cultural Citizenship in Túndé Kèlání's Films

The article analyses and reflects on the intergenerational relationship between Yorùbá performance traditions, Túndé Kèlání's films and contemporary youth theatrical practices in Nigeria. I focus on the engagement of youth in the production of some of Kèlání's well-known video films and explore how these works participate in the generation of a new public in the new social context. Based on an examination of Túndé Kèlání's collaboration with Crown Troupe of Africa, a Lagos-based youth street theatre troupe, the article suggests that, rather than a 'degeneration' of popular performance culture, contemporary video culture in Nigeria has continuously recycled the prevalent political morality derived from earlier performance genres, and constitutes a crucial site of youth mobilisation and activism in contemporary Nigeria.