In Badagry, Masegohun—often shortened to Mase—is more than music. It is social memory set to rhythm. A secular, communal sound of the Ogu (Egun) people, Masegohun once animated weddings, house-warmings, chieftaincy installations and coronations. It was the soundtrack of joy, identity and collective belonging.

Yet today, it is dangerously close to extinction within Badagry itself.

Historically, Masegohun developed from the broader Mase tradition popularised by the legendary Yedenou Adjahoui of the Republic of Benin, whose influence spread across Ogu-speaking communities on both sides of the border. What distinguished Masegohun was not only its tempo but its instrumentation—Apesin-pevi pot drums, Apotin wooden box drums leading dance rhythms, Alekle twin drums, Ogan gongs, and Aya shakers. Performances opened with Avale—homage to deities and elders—before rising gradually to an ecstatic climax where dance, praise-singing and social bonding converged.

Unlike Sato, the towering, ritual drum music reserved for sacred festivals and performed by orphans, Masegohun was the people’s music. It was accessible, celebratory, and unapologetically social.

That accessibility, however, did not guarantee survival.

As Dr Tony Dansu recalls, the 1980s and early 1990s saw several Masegohun bands across Badagry and neighbouring Ogu communities. Today, he can confidently point to only one surviving band around him. The irony is painful: just as Europeans and foreign cultural institutions are beginning to take serious interest in African indigenous music, Badagry may soon find itself hiring outsiders to perform its own traditions.

It is not a new story. As Dansu notes, we already export crude oil only to import refined petroleum products at exorbitant prices. Cultural extraction follows the same logic when heritage is neglected at home and commodified abroad.

Responses to his reflection expose deeper structural and psychological issues.

Ṣeun Williams rightly observes that the arts only thrive when “the mind, heart and stomach are nourished.” Culture cannot survive on sentiment alone. Artists need stable patronage, functioning local economies, and institutional respect. Where survival is uncertain, art becomes optional—and eventually disposable.

Kriko St Augustine’s intervention cuts deeper. He identifies an inferiority complex that has quietly taken root in Badagry: a preference for dominant cultures over our own. Even at Ogu gatherings, Yoruba musicians dominate, while Ogu performers resort to linguistic and stylistic fusion to remain employable. Worse still, many traditional rulers reportedly prefer popular Yoruba musicians over Masegohun bands. When custodians abandon their own culture, erosion becomes inevitable.

Lasisi Jamiu Aremu widens the lens further, noting how local languages are being discouraged while foreign scholars increasingly study and preserve them. The contradiction is striking: what we neglect, others archive.

Hunjenukon S Kehinde’s lament may be the most haunting. Children in Ogu villages now struggle to understand the #Ogu language. Some do not even bear Ogu names. Identity is being hollowed out not by force, but by neglect.

This is not merely about music. It is about cultural confidence, political will, and self-recognition.

Masegohun’s decline reflects broader questions facing Badagry:
Who defines what is worthy of preservation?
Who funds culture?
Who performs identity—and for whom?

If culture is left entirely to nostalgia, it dies. If it is left to foreign validation, it becomes a museum piece. But when culture is integrated into education, local governance, tourism planning, festivals, and youth engagement, it regenerates.

Badagry cannot afford to mourn #Masegohun after it disappears. The conversation must move from lamentation to deliberate revival—through patronage, documentation, training, and pride.

Otherwise, silence will replace rhythm, and history will remember that Badagry watched its music fade while the drums were still warm.