Is a rose by any other name still a rose? For the Yorubas in southwest Nigeria and a lot of cultures across Africa, a name is more than a moniker or a means of differentiating one person from another.
It is a serious and time-honored means of giving a newborn child an identity. Amongst Yoruba families, a name communicates the rich, colorful and vibrant heritage and history of families. It also informs their hopes and aspirations for the newborn.
"Oriki" is the oral Yoruba poetry of chanted in salute of history and heritage often reaching back hundreds of years. Globalization trends have led to the blurring of borderlines, both geographically and culturally. Indigenous cultures are dissolving, clearing the way for one unified global phenomenon. Increasing urban shifts and a strong emphasis on global compliance have left important aspects of cultural identities under attack. And as more people adopt western ways of thinking and understanding, the threat of extinction becomes more glaring, more imminent, more inevitable. Questions arise: are we losing our sense of self? Is there a chance for us to recover this heritage? Is progress in the age of globalization and the preservation of our cultures and historical heritage incompatible aspirations?

Directed and produced by Femi Odugbemi

2010, Nigeria, documentary, 26 minutes

starring
Suleman Ayilara, singer, popularly called Ajobiewe
Chief Adebayo Faleti, Historian, writer and actor
Prof. Adetoun Ogundeji, culture scholar (University of Ibadan),
Mr. Dele Farotimi, legal practitioner
...

Director: Femi Odugbemi
Producer: Femi Odugbemi
Genre: Documentary
Produced In: 2010
Story Teller's Country: Nigeria

Tags: Africa, Belief, Culture, Globalization