The first thing I want to talk about is the question of if there is any urban artist in Cameroon whose voice is strong enough for their stand on the struggle to be warranted - Well, I don’t think so. Even Jovi or Stanley’s voice will not make any difference in this struggle. We need to stop giving these artists more credit than they deserve. It takes a lot to become a voice for the people and there is no urban artist in this moment that has done enough to have any political impact.
Secondly, I hate every song done to speak on the anglophone crisis because they all come from people who have shown no signs of social consciousness in their music or on other platforms before this point. If Lapiro (RIP) was alive today, he will get a pass to sing on the struggle but all these artists who have been doing either mindless music or singing for women need to stop trying to take advantage of the struggle to generate buzz for themselves. Longue Longue maybe can get a pass. Richard Bona definitely has pass but I am sure he knows a song has zero impact, and the real impact comes from using his voice outside of music to continuously rebuke injustice and other societal ills, something which he does regularly.
Any artist who is really concerned about the welfare of his people does not need to wait for an occasion where everybody is talking about something to talk. In Cameroon, the number of societal ills an artist or any public figure can rebuke are uncountable. If you have to wait for something of great magnitude to happen before you speak up for the first time, then you are just an opportunist who has no genuine motives or you need to become more proactive. Take lessons from 2 Face in Nigeria. He has used his voice both in music and outside music with every project and throughout his career, not waiting for a bomb to go off before he speaks.
Any-Ha!
Now to Tzy Panchak.
I can say Tzy has been one of those artists who is not afraid to use his voice inside and outside of music. I’m not going to list the songs here. You can go check that out yourself. If any artist should get flag for not speaking out on the anglophone crisis, Tzy should be the last of them. He has been outspoken on many things including the issue of anglophone artists doing more to please their francophone audience. It is for this reason I believe the campaign to boycott his show in the DMV was planted by his management team.
The campaign surfaced online after Tzy appeared on a more than one hour interview on Stuck In The Middle, a podcast hosted by some Cameroonians in Maryland, USA. If you are a follower of that podcast, and you watched Tzy’s interview, you will know his is one of the most popular interviews ever on Stuck in The Middle, with over a thousand people tuning in to watch LIVE. I only watched part of the interview so I am not sure if he indeed talked or did not talk about the anglophone crisis but if he did’t, it must be he was not asked about it and there was no occasion to bring it up.
Tzy probably just found out through that interview that he has a strong fanbase and this boycott campaign will only make his fans come closer to him and we see that happening as support for him came in pouring right after that boycott campaign hit the internet. I mean here I am writing paragraphs about it. If it was a publicity stunt, it is working really good. I am 99% sure it was a publicity stunt because like I said earlier, If there is one artists that has been socially conscious in the past, it is Tzy and there is no reason for anyone else to think otherwise.