Cameroon urban Music has managed to cement her position among the big guns in the African continent within a short period of 10 years, credit to Entrepreneurs and record labels like Empire Music, Alpha Better Records, Stevens Music, New Bell, No Hits no records, Zion records, and others who have in one way or the other invested their time, money and energy into the business.
Please, if you are reading this, have it in mind that every collaboration must be mutually beneficial to both artists and so I will not advise for artists to engage into a collabo just for the sake of it, or because we are making articles about it.
However, we can all agree that musical collaborations between artists has numerous benefits first to both artists and their teams and then to their home industry. The advantages include mutual creative growth, more opportunities and exposure, new song writing practices and ideas as well as a whole lot of engagement and interaction between the fans of both artists.
When I thought of this topic, I tried to convince myself that female artists have previously collaborated as I was digging and asking colleagues if they had an idea. Well, the sad reality is that we’ve had little or no collaborations between female artists in the Cameroon Urban music industry. The “little” there above simply explains group projects that include many other male artists etc.
Daphne, Mimie, Gasha, Mel B, Shura, Nabila, Ewube, Reniss, Blanche Bailly, Askia, Tilla, Meshi, Montess and many other new artists have managed to gain the love of the public and become popular because of their hard work. Most of them have collaborated with male artists but never, or very rarely have we seen them engage to coming up with a female duo project.
For an industry that feeds more on negative energy than the positive, fans and the media have in the past been forced to exploit the little “beefs” and disagreements between these ladies which happens to be the only form of “collaboration” or call it “Dis-collaboration” between them. I mean, the only time you see a headline carrying the name of two female artists, it has to either be a beef or a disagreement.
In a typically male-dominated industry and the rising talks on Feminism and gender equality, the female artists in Cameroon are doing little or nothing via their music space to shift the bias against women. It’s more like they all feel reluctant to show the pathway to the others after seeing success.
I mentioned Feminism here because the bias is still clearly visible as apart from their music singles, the narrative relating to the ladies in the industry is around nude pictures, standing breasts, multi-dating, half naked etc., all which would have been kept aside if there was content about a good collaboration or music between them.
We have seen several beefs and apologies tabled and approved, we have seen “show of love” kinda relationships among these female artists on the media, but never have they actually come together to have a song together.
The work most of these ladies put into their craft is much more than what the men do as they sometimes have to go extreme to a personal level, and so seeing them pool together and collaborate more could work a trick in given them the respect they deserve.
I got inspiration to come up with this article after reading an opinion article on Pulse.ng on Tiwa Savage and why she has not collaborated that much with Female Nigerian artists. Click HERE to read the article.
When have we ever had the idea of a female collaboration project? How much longer should we wait for that Collaboration between Cameroonian FEMALE Urban artists?
Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
