Cameroonian multiple award winner and living legend, Prophet Bobe Yerima Afo Akom continues to prove beyond logical doubt that he is a cultural leader even in this Urban Music generation.
I watched his new song “We hate ourselves” this weekend with keen interest as I was interested in the concept from the lyrics through the video.
As he explained on Jambo over the weekend, this song is a remix to his 1991 piece titled “Jealousy”. The song is about Jealousy and hatred, which is a canker-worm in today’s society.
Now, I was attracted by the video concept of the song which portrayed an urbanization from the usual concepts on Afo Akom’s songs. He included the usual scenes we see in our today’s songs, clubs, natural environment, ladies dressed half naked, urban dance moves etc. and did not leave out his usual cultural concepts which include cultural attires and the various dance moves from different cultures around the nation.
This was a risk/experiment which was well carried out. There is a group of young artists who are scared to experiment their genre of music because of the new generation/urban music dominance of nowadays.
Young artists with that love for the old folkloric style of music have to understand that they can maintain same style of music but twist it to match the current market trends and it will still be well received.
Doctor X as Video director did justice with the concept of the song though the coloring wasn’t the best. He however did an amazing job especially working with someone like Afo-Akom who hasn’t really every attempted to merge the other concepts to suit both generations.
Other artists like Kimbi Emmanuel, Mutzig star winner 2012 who are scared to engage their style of music into the Urban style can learn lesson or two from here.
Click HERE Download audio and video of “We hate ourselves”.
What do you think about the video? Do you think the gamble paid off? Let us know in the comments section below.