The Bullying Economy of Cameroonian Music
A critical examination of how structural desperation in Cameroon's music industry enables systematic exploitation of artists by intermediaries—video directors, promoters, bloggers—who profit far more than the creators themselves. The writer argues that artists must become their own narrators and advocates, resisting both institutional gatekeeping and the mythology of overnight success.
The price of fame is very high and boy, Cameroonian artists, especially the upcoming hip hop artists ‘di hear qwang’ (having it hot). Granted 95% of artists won’t make it, one can’t help but feel sorry for the poor souls. Mind you this has nothing to do with their level of talent or lack of. The socioeconomic dynamics in Cameroon do not allow for the success of many artists in the form the artists are shooting for.
I do not know of any other country where artists can register themselves at the Ministry of Culture and receive some amount of money every year. They even go as far as fighting over whose name is on the list of registered artists and how much each person gets. You have people we know nothing about that benefit from such programs even more than the artists struggling to present some work of art to a distracted public.
The younger generation of artists are a little removed from such government politics and you won’t find many of them running behind officials at the ministry of culture to secure an annual paycheck. That such a system even exists goes to show how even the government is aware the nation is not fertile breeding ground for self sustaining creatives.
All the above was just to establish the desperation that dominates the life of the average creative in Cameroon and this desperation is being taken advantage of by everybody in the industry. The artists are the poorest people in the industry meanwhile they generate the most money. All the video directors, radio guys, TV guys, etc are all making more money that the artists.
I look at the relationship between artists and people like promoters to be comparative to that of the church and the poor believers enriching it. Sadly, nobody cares about the artists because if they did, we would have more successful artists. Even the so called bloggers that are always quick to cry foul are using the artists to propel their own images, bullying the artists into silence or forced respect.
“If you care don’t go to the studio, stay here on facebook thinking it will help your career”
- That is the phrase used by bloggers who want to frighten artists out of social media especially when the artists are beginning to get more attention than the bloggers themselves. Meanwhile it is important as an artist to spend more time working on your craft, it is equally as important for you to have a dominating presence on social media.
Think Jovi. Left to bloggers alone, Jovi would have been extinguished by negative press but he understands one thing; ‘as an artist, you have to be your own blogger.’ There isn’t a single blogger out there (in Cameroon) that can tell your story better than you can and leaving the narrative of you life in their hands is the most dangerous thing you can do as an artists.
Now to the artists, as I have been there - You're going to have to fight for every single thing, forever and ever. It's really unlikely that they will pick you, anoint you or hand you the audience and support you seek. No one will ever realize just how extraordinary you are, how charismatic, or how talented.
That pretty much doesn't happen, except for just a handful of people who win some sort of cosmic lottery, who get the big label deal and the gold records, merely for being in the right place at the right time.
Those people, it turns out, those few, end up unhappy. You might imagine that you'd like to be in their shoes, but they spend every day feeling both entitled and fraudulent.
You, on the other hand, get the privilege of the struggle, of working your ass off to make a difference.
(This is likely the last I will write about the music industry outside song reviews)
Written in 2017, the piece reflects a moment when social media was reshaping artist-audience relationships in Cameroon, yet traditional power brokers (ministry bureaucrats, bloggers, promoters) were still gatekeeping visibility and resources. The post captures the frustration of a generation of hip-hop artists navigating a system designed neither to sustain them nor to reward talent fairly.
The analysis exposes a structural truth often obscured by success narratives: in contexts of economic scarcity, creative work becomes prey to a parasitic middle layer of gatekeepers. The writer's insistence that artists must control their own narrative—rather than waiting for institutional blessing—remains urgently relevant as power asymmetries persist in creative economies across Africa. The piece also documents, without sentimentality, what economic precarity actually costs.