There is a whole generation of young Cameroonians that have been re-introduced to Richard Bona. People who have not really known the man, the artist, the multi-instrumentalist, the bass guitarist and the genius musician now known as Richard Bona, The Activist.
It is yet another product of the magic of the internet and by extension, of the quarantine period. Richard Bona, who is always touring year in, year out or buried in his studio working with his musicians or with Quincy Jones suddenly finds himself at home, no doubt bored out of his mind. And like many other musicians and celebrities, he began to interact more with his fan base via social media lives.
It is not today that Richard Bona started his political activism. In fact, one should not call it activism. Advocacy is what he did before and it was limited to little jabs on social media posts about the failures of the present regime. But with the COVID 19 pandemic, everything changed. One of the world’s top bass guitarist had a lot to say and it seemed he had bottled it up for a long time.
We learned for example, why he decided to get an American nationality in 2005, after, as he claims, the then ambassador of Cameroon in the U.S used his civic information to make duplicate passports with his name, which were sold to an individual with bad intentions. We learned the story of how that got him arrested in Croatia because someone with his name, carrying a Cameroonian passport had scammed a European citizen, and Interpol was on his tail.
We learned about the medal that he was supposed to be given in honour of his contribution to the Arts and how someone at the Ministry of Culture had asked him to come to Yaounde to “gerer le dossier” so that the medal could be given to him.
We heard in greater detail, the circumstances surrounding the denial of his entry into Cameroon in 2013, when he wanted to bury his mother.
All this culminated in the song “Allo Fokou;” a resistance hymn he composed in defiance to the regime and all the failure it embodies. The song hit number 1 on iTunes Frances and number 3 on iTunes U.S and has amassed 163,000 views on YouTube 3 days later. (I am writing this on Saturday.)
And we are not at the end of it. Richard Bona is ENJOYING these lives, there is no question about that. He does a live almost every day now and the theme in every live is strongly political and anti-system. His multiple lives and the positive engagement and long tail discussion it is evoking on social media is beginning to worry people in the regime. And he knows it. At this point, he is basically trolling them and they haven’t caught that yet. And every time they try to do a rebuttal, he trolls them even more. And we are here for it.
What’s the lesson in this?
For the younger musicians that are reading this and for everyone as well, it shows just how much the music business today is also a content business. Music is now, more than ever a democratic process and how much you are able to rally “citizens” to your cause will go a certain distance to determine how much success you can have as a musician. It is not a magic stick nor is it a final solution.
I mean, it helps that Richard Bona had built a solid career with his music catalog to back his fame. He didn’t become famous on the internet. He was already so and for us who have been absolute fans of the man (the first CD I ever bought was Richard Bona’s “Munia The tale” in 2004 – a pirated CD lol) we are now discovering a side of the man that we did not really know. We are now really getting to hear the real version of the rumours we had heard. And this makes great content for Richard Bona and great entertainment for us. Every time I get a live notification, I watch immediately. If I can’t do so immediately, I do so later.
The lesson here is to find or create some content that will be sure to engage your fans and followers. Richard Bona has never been – to the best of my knowledge of Mbo’o – politically active in his music. But look at the peculiarity of this situation… he has been talking politics for two straight months and then he releases a politically-charged song and the audience that he has built from his lives rush there to listen, download and share links.
The blueprint is clear.
If you are not on Richard Bona or Sade, or Ed Sheeran level, you are almost condemned to follow a similar blueprint. You may be lucky to have a hit record or series of hit records that will make you burn bridges and not have to follow that blueprint and perhaps never have to. But if you are not so lucky, you have to hustle and not just create content. You have to BE content.
The game is set that way and you have to play it thus. I see many up-and-coming Cameroonian Urban musicians on Twitter that have 1000 followers coming there only to drop a link to their new single and then disappear. You haven’t been present enough and given people enough attention to make them want to drop what they are doing and listen to your song.
Unfortunately things don’t work that way. We are not in the 90s. Social media has brought us closer to our public, and a fan will insult you directly if they are not having it with you over a particular issue.
Learn from Richard Bona. Learn from the Content and Troll King.
- Wandji Wilfred.