You all have probably seen it. The video of the artiste affectionately called Mama Nguea, almost unrecognisable, headtie tied dandily on her head and pleading on the government, on Cameroonians, and of course on Mama Chantou, to come to her help by providing some financial medical assistance.
It is an all-too-common sight. It’s as if almost every Cameroonian celebrity, whether sportsman or musician, that plied their trade in the 80s almost always come to the same fate, dying in abject poverty and almost always to the complete obliviousness of the rest of us Cameroonians. And it almost always happens to be at Hopital Laquintinie, a symbolic passageway to the afterlife; a repository where the grips of death automatically cradles everyone who gets in and from which you can only pull yourself by some measure of good luck and not medical competency of any sort.
And while some romanticise the conversation about our icons coming to an end that is not commensurate with their contributions to our culture, others are locked in a debate about whether or not tax-payers’ money should be given as aid to Mama Nguea. Some question what these ‘stars’ did with their earnings while they lived, only to end up at the complete mercy of anonymous donors.
In a way, all of these are legitimate questions and conversations. Where they all lead to is where the main issue is. If it is purely to end up like the Sunday political debates on Canal2, then we might as well fold our arms and walk around with blindfolds and act as if we were in that movie with Sandra Bullock.
If, on the other hand, we can, from this, draw up patterns and models, and see particular behaviours which have led to all this and then design, or at least conclude that there is a certain system that can be taken and used in order to avoid seeing Blanche Bailly, in 40 years, begging for help from our kids, then we would have made a certain value and worth out of the conversation.
This is one of those topics I choose to give myself a certain distance from. It is hard not to be human and to ask, what the hell did those guys do with their money. But with my 30 years on this earth, experience has taught me that life is an uncharted path, and that things happen to people for one reason or the other, sometimes by their own doing and other times by just pure bad luck. Almost like the story in the bible when God and Satan were playing parifoot over Job.
But again, as a human, it is hard for me not to judge. But I like to think I am well-read and life-experienced to judge by asking the right questions. And from my judgement I have noticed that between our generation and the generation of Mama Nguea, there are two schools of thought.
NUMBER ONE: If you look at it clearly, you will find that virtually all the musicians from the 70s, 80s and early 90s, after making some good record here ultimately decided to take up residence abroad. I mean, really think about it. And it was always two places, Paris and Brussels, ironically two headquarters that harboured the signatures sanctioning some of the worst crimes against humanity in colonial Africa.
Even Longue Longue Le Liberateur whose first hit song was an anti neo-colonialism anthem decided to move to Paris, ultimately finding himself in some sex scandal and landing in a French geol.
Now, living in Paris is expensive. Living in Paris without papers, even more so. And while Tube Vision and whatever defunct CRTV musical programme interviewed these stars who told us “je vis a Paris” and selling us the dream of ‘the abroad’, we know better than to fall for that trick today. Ultimately it caught up with them and at some point, they had to come back... They always do. Prince Aime just got back.
You don’t have to be a genius to understand that there is a certain correlation between living abroad with no papers and coming back broke and hoping for a morsel from this saga of “droits d’auteurs” that has been going on forever. They find themselves hoping on a governance system that they had somewhat run away from.
But then again, you find successful models like Richard Bona and Ndedi Eyango, and you ask yourself ‘mais que-est-ce qui n’a pas marche?”
NUMBER TWO: Is our generation. The Salatiels and magascos and Daphnes. Successful at home and abroad but still choosing to live here. Blanche Bailly moved back home to work on her music and has since taken up residence here. It is a whole different mentality and a whole different approach; and one that I think is more sustainable and also makes more sense given our current technological dispensation. I make it sound simple but there are a lot more ingredients to this particular soup.
But we also have our own Paris and Brussels. One that is fuelled by technology and causes us to live fake lives, to show off things that we sometimes do not own and finally drives us into a rabbit hole so deep that we have no other choice but to keep up with appearances.
Perhaps that may be our own doom, perhaps we may realise soon enough to become or very own salvation and not find our image pauperised on national television leaving our own kids wondering what we may have done with that Alpha Better money or that Empire Money, or that Stevens Music money.
In any case life is an uncharted journey and Mama Nguea’s journey could have taken a different path. There are certainly bigger and more impactful questions to ask about this. Questions that I do not want to go into. I only hope that we and our artistes take this example to ask ourselves how we are preparing for our own future.
Because, true, two supernatural beings may be playing bali-bali with our lives but our actions more than their wagers, I believe, will go a long way to determine whether or not in the future we will be on CRTV, begging for Mama Chantou to come to our aid.
Wandji Wilfred