A Message to Tenor Ebanglang: On Responsibility and the Future of Cameroonian Hip-Hop
The writer celebrates Tenor Ebanglang's artistic trajectory and latest release, 'Bad Things,' as evidence of an artist choosing creative depth over commercial simplification. The piece frames this choice as a moral stance: a refusal of the 'dumbing down' logic that dominates mass media, and an embrace of the harder work of cultural imagination.
I have to say I am pleasantly surprised by your latest release ‘Bad things.’ After a career take off with ‘Do le dab’ and a somewhat cementation of your presence with ‘kabangondo’ I was worried. Both songs were hits and for a young man of your age to be able to create such impact and live their dream, it is hard for anyone to say anything negative about that especially in our country where the youth have to fight extra hard to even be heard.
Hip Hop is the most powerful tool in the shaping of culture. We both know the countless number of youths that want to be you right now. I hope that you understand the amount of responsibility that you now carry. Know that the future of urban music in Cameroon is as good as where you decide to take it.
What is this all about?
We all know If you want to reach more people, if you're measuring audience size, then the mantra of the last twenty years has been simple: make it dumber. Use clickbait headlines. Short sentences. Obvious ideas. Little nuance. Don't make people uncomfortable or ask them to stretch. Remind them that they were right all along. Generate a smile or a bit of indignation. Most of all, dumb it down. And it works. For a while. And then someone comes along who figures out how to take your version of dumbness and go further than you were willing to go until we all crash. Dumber is an intentional act, a selfish trade for mass. It requires us to hold something back, to avoid creating any discomfort, to fail to teach. Dumber always works in the short run, but not in the long run.
Your new song tells me you are willing to go the other way. The difficult way, the journey worth going on. You have to continue stretching the limits of our imagination and our perception of what it means to be a Cameroonian Urban artists.
In 2017, Cameroon's urban music scene was gaining regional and continental visibility, with young artists navigating the tension between local authenticity and global streaming logics. The writer is addressing a moment when a rising talent faces the decision of whether to consolidate early success through formula or to take creative risks—a pressure felt acutely by artists in contexts where visibility itself is hard-won.
The piece articulates a philosophy of culture-making that runs counter to the algorithmic pressures of the digital age: the belief that artists carry a civic responsibility, that hip-hop is a shaping force, and that 'stretching the limits of imagination' is not luxury but necessity. It remains urgent because the tension between accessibility and depth, between algorithmic reward and artistic integrity, has only intensified since 2017.