| Music of Cameroon |
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| Specific forms |
| Regional music |
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Themusic of the Cameroon includes diverse traditional and modern musical genres. The best-known contemporary genre ismakossa, a popular style that has gained fans acrossAfrica, and its related dance crazebikutsi.
Thepirogue sailors ofDouala are known for a kind of singing called "Ngoso" which has evolved into a kind of modern music accompanied byzanza,balafon, and variouspercussion instruments.
Theethnicities of Cameroon include an estimated 250 distinctethnic groups in five regional-cultural divisions. An estimated 38% of the population are Western highlanders–Semi-Bantu or grassfielders including theBamileke,Bamum, and many smallerTikar groups in thenorthwest. 12% are coastal tropical forest peoples, including theBassa,Duala, and many smaller groups in thesouthwest. The southern tropical forest peoples (18%) include theBeti-Pahuin and their sub-groups the Bulu andFang, theMaka andNjem, as well as, theBakapygmies. In the semi-arid northern regions (theSahel) and central highlands theFulani (French:Peul orPeuhl;Fula:Fulɓe) form an estimated 14% of Cameroonians, while theKirdi (unbelievers) are a general category, comprising 18% of the population, of various mainlyChadic andAdamawa speakers.
TheBeti, or Ewondo, live in the area aroundYaoundé and south intoEquatorial Guinea. They are best known forbikutsi music, which has been popularized and become a rival for the more urban and accessible makossa ofDouala. The name can be loosely translated asbeating the ground continuously. Bikutsi, characterized by an intense 6/8 rhythm, is played at Beti gatherings including parties, funerals, and weddings.
Beti gatherings fall into two major categories:
A double-sidedharp withcalabash amplification called themvet is used during these ceremonies by Beti storytellers, who are viewed as using the mvet as an instrument of God to educate the people. The Ekang phase is intensely musical and usually lasts all night. There are poetic recitations accompanied by clapping and dancing, with interludes for improvised and sometimes obscene performances on thebalafon (a type ofxylophone). These interludes signal the shift to the bikutsi phase which is much less strictly structured than Ekang. During bikutsi, women dance and sing along with the balafon, and lyrics focus on real-life problems, as well as sexual fantasies.
These female choruses are an integral part of bikutsi, and their intense dancing and screams are characteristic of the genre. Another type of ceremony is the mevungu, when women dance all night to abstain from sex during those hours for a period of nine days. Thesso ritual is much-feared by Beti boys as it involves a series of tests to mark a boy's passage into manhood.
The earliest recorded popular music from Cameroon comes from the 1930s, when the most popular styles were importedpop music and French-stylechanson. InDouala, the most developed city in Cameroon,accordions andambasse bey music were common, with performers like Lobe Lobe,Ebanda Manfred, and Nelle Eyoum finding a local audience.Ekambi Brillant and the first major Cameroonian hit, "N'Gon Abo," set the stage for the development ofmakossa. Post-independence in 1960, a local variant onpalm wine music calledassiko, was popular especially Jean Bikoko and Dikoume Bernard.
The urbanization of Cameroon has had a major influence on the country's music. Migration to the city of Yaoundé, for example, was a major cause for the popularization of bikutsi music. During the 1950s, bars sprang up across the city to accommodate the influx of new inhabitants and soon became a symbol for Cameroonian identity in the face of colonialism. Balafon orchestras, consisting of 3-5 balafons and various percussion instruments (including the balafon, which is both a harmonic and percussive instrument) became common in the bars. Some of these orchestras, such as Richard Band de Zoetele, became quite popular in spite of scorn from the European elite.
The middle of the 20th century saw the popularization of a nativefolk music calledbikutsi. Bikutsi is based on a war rhythm played with variousrattles anddrums andxylophone. Sung by women, bikutsi featured sexually explicit lyrics and songs about everyday problems. In a popularized form, bikutsi gained mainstream success in the 1950s.Anne-Marie Nzié was perhaps the most important of the early innovators. The next bikutsi performer of legendary stature wasMessi Me Nkonda Martin and his band, Los Camaroes, who addedelectric guitars and other new elements.
Balafon orchestras had remained popular throughout the 1950s in Yaoundé's bar scene, but the audience demanded modernity, and the popular style at the time was unable to cope. Messi Martin was a Cameroonian guitarist who had been inspired to learn the instrument by listening toSpanish language-broadcasts from neighboringEquatorial Guinea, as well asCuban, andZaireanrumba. Messi changed the electric guitar by linking the strings together with pieces of paper, thus giving the instrument a damper tone which emitted a "thudding" sound similar to the balafon.
Messi's style was immediately popular, and his hits, like "Mengalla Maurice" and "Bekono Nga N'Konda," became radio favorites throughout the country beginning in the early 1960s. Further innovations followed, as Messi replaced the handclaps and sanza with a synthesizer and the foot-stamping 6/8 rhythm todrums.
Later in the 1960s, modernmakossa developed and became the most popular genre in Cameroon. Makossa is a type offunkydance music, best known outside Africa forManu Dibango, whose 1972 single "Soul Makossa" was an international hit. Outside of Africa, Dibango and makossa were only briefly popular, but the genre has produced several pan-African superstars through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Following Dibango, a wave of musicians electrified makossa in an attempt at making it more accessible outside of Cameroon. Another pop singer in 1970s Cameroon was André-Marie Tala, a blind singer who had a pair of hits with "Sikati" and "Potaksima."
By the 1970s, bikutsi performers like Maurice Elanga, Les Veterans, and Mbarga Soukous, addedbrass instruments and found controversy over pornographic lyrics.Mama Ohandja also brought bikutsi to new audiences, especially inEurope. The following decade, however, sawLes Tetes Brulées surpass previous artists in international popularity though their reaction at home was mixed. Many listeners did not like their mellow, almosteasy listening-styled bikutsi. Cameroonian audiences preferred more roots-based performers like Jimmy Mvondo Mvelé and Uta Bella, both fromYaoundé.
By the 1980s, makossa had moved toParis and a new pop-makossa fused elements ofAntilleanzouk. Prominent musicians from this period includedMoni Bilé, Douleur,Bébé Manga,Ben Decca [fr],Petit-Pays, andEsa.
The 1980s also saw rapid development of Cameroon's media which saw a flourishing of both makossa and bikutsi. In 1980, L'Equipe Nationale de Makossa was formed, joining the biggest makossa stars of the period together, including,Grace Decca,Ndedi Eyango, Ben Decca, Guy Lobe, and Dina Bell. Makossa in the 1980s saw a wave of mainstream success across Africa and, to a lesser degree, abroad as Latin influences,Martinicanzouk, and pop music changed its form. While makossa enjoyed international renown, bikutsi was often denigrated as the music of savages, and it did not appeal across ethnic lines and into urban areas. Musicians continued to add innovations, however, and improved recording techniques; Nkondo Si Tony, for example, addedkeyboards and synthesizers while Elanga Maurice addedbrass instruments. Les Veterans emerged as the most famous bikutsi group in the 1980s while other prominent performers included Titans de Sangmelima, Seba Georges, Ange Ebogo Emerent, Otheo and Mekongo President, who added complex harmonies andjazz influences.
In 1984, a new wave of bikutsi artists emerged, including Sala Bekono formerly of Los Camaroes, Atebass, a bassist, and Zanzibar, a guitarist who would eventually help formLes Têtes Brulées with Jean-Marie Ahanda. 1985 saw the formation ofCRTV, atelevision network that did much to help popularize Cameroonian popular music across the country.
Jean-Marie Ahanda became the most influential bikutsi performer of the late 1980s, and he revolutionized the genre in 1987 after forming Les Têtes Brulées, whose success changed the Cameroonian music industry. The band played an extremely popular form of bikutsi that allowed for greater depth and diversity. Guitarist Zanzibar added foam rubber to the bridge of his guitar, which made the instrument sound more like a balafon than before, and was more aggressive and innovative than previous musicians. Les Têtes Brulées emerged as a reaction against pop-makossa, which was seen as abandoning its roots in favor of mainstream success. The band's image was part of its success, and they became known for their shaved heads and multi-colored body painting, done to represent traditional Beti scarification, as well as torn T-shirts that implied a common folkness in contrast to the well-styled pop-makossa performers of the period. They also wore backpacks on stage, a reference to Beti women's traditional method of carrying babies while they danced bikutsi.
It took only a few weeks for Les Têtes Brulées to knock makossa off the Cameroonian charts, and the band even touredFrance. While in France, Les Têtes Brulées recorded their first LP,Hot Heads, which was also the first bikutsi music recorded for theCD.Hot Heads expanded the lyrical format of the genre to include socio-political issues. Tours ofJapan,Africa,Europe, and theUnited States followed, as well asClaire Denis' filmMan No Run, which used footage from their European tour.
In the 1990s, both makossa and bikutsi declined in popularity as a new wave of genres entered mainstream audiences. These includedCongolese-influenced new rumba and makossa-soukous, as well as more native forms likebantowbol, northern Camerooniannganja (which had gained some popularity in theUnited Kingdom in the mid-1980s), and an urban street music calledbend-skin.
Les Têtes Brulées remained the country's most well known musical export, especially after accompanying the Camerooniansoccer team to theWorld Cup in 1990 inItaly and 1994 in the United States. A new wave of bikutsi artists arose in the early 1990s, including Les Martiens (formed by Les Têtes Brulées bassist Atebass) and the sexually themed roots-singer Katino Ateba ("Ascenseur: le secret de l'homme") andDouala singer Sissi Dipoko ("Bikut-si Hit") as well as a resurgence of old performers like Sala Bekono. Bikutsi's international renown continued to grow, and the song "Proof" fromPaul Simon'sRhythm of the Saints, released to mainstream promotion and success in 1990, gained yet more renown from international audiences.Vincent Nguini also contributed guitar arrangements and performance to Simon'sRhythm of the Saints, which became an influentialworld music album, introducing many North American listeners to the wide range of instrumentation and genres.
In 1993, the Pedalé movement was born as a reaction to the Cameroonian economic slump. Youthful artists like Gibraltar Drakuss, Zele le Bombardier, Eboue Chaleur, Pasto, Roger Bekono, Mbarga Soukous, and Saint-Desiré Atango was a return to the aggressive, earthy sound of bikutsi roots. Meanwhile,Henri Dikongué, whose music incorporated, amongst others, bikutsi and makossa, began to release albums which met international success. He went on to tour Europe and North America. The most recent form of Cameroonian popular music is a fusion of Congolesesoukous and makossa, a scene which has producedPetit Pays, Marcel Bwanga, Kotto Bass, Papillon andJean Pierre Essome. Other popular genres includeBend-skin,mangambeu, andmakassi.
