Vol. 62, No. 2 Ethnomusicology Summer 2018 © 2018 by the Society for Ethnomusicology Tradition, Innovations, and Modernity in the Music of the Edo of Nigeria: Toward a Teory of Progressive Traditionalism Austin Emielu / Kwara State University, Malete, Nigeria Abstract. For a long time, African traditional music was seen as fxed and rigid, while the popular was allowed headroom for innovations—notions that continue to be challenged by current scholarship. Tis article further challenges this notion of rigidity and fxity by using a focused study of the Edo of Nigeria to demonstrate in very specifc ways how dance bands are redefning traditional music through innovations in ways that articulate progressive traditionalism. Because much of so-called African popular music developed from indigenous roots and shows evidence of the interpenetration of the old and the new, this article proceeds to problematize the traditional/popular binary, proposing in its stead a theory of progressive traditionalism as a way to understand the con- tinuous modernization of indigenous African music, as well as the continuous indigenization of imported foreign music and musical resources. I set the tone for the discussions in this article by frst problematizing Claude Lévi-Strauss’s division of world cultures into hot and cold (“société chaude et société froide”); the former is dynamic and innovative, and the latter is stagnant and traditional (cited in Kubik 2009:7). Because the discipline of ethnomusicol- ogy developed frst to study the music of nonliterate societies whose music was considered pristine, raw, and authentic in comparison with Western music, there is a sense in which Lévi-Strauss’s binary—which I consider Eurocentric—assigns hot cultures to the West and cold to the rest, including Africa. Tus, African music is implicated in this categorization as cold, stagnant, and traditional. However, if there is any aspect of African traditions and cultural practices that has experienced and continues to experience tremendous innovations and trans- formations, it is the music of Africa, whether traditional, popular, or art. In the age of cultural globalization, I submit that it is unimaginable to hold that certain cultures will remain cold, traditional, and stagnant, shielded from global cultural © Copyright 2018 by the Society of Ethnomusicology. No part of this article may be reproduced, photocopied, posted online, or distributed through any means without the permission of the SEM.