Starting with Cameroon and taking a close look at trips that artists from Cameroon have made to the West African country of Benin, one might be forced to point out that these trips have ended up in glorification and have been somewhat satisfying to say the least.
Benin does not frequently feature on the roster of most impactful African countries musically, which seemingly makes this country quite underrated. The country harbors great artists like four time Grammy Award-winning veteran singer, Angélique Kidjo.
Their contemporary urban music industry has been very influential, and the influence of some of their artists could be depicted from the trips some of them have made to Cameroon or those some Cameroonians made there.
From some of these collaborations between some Cameroonian artists and Béninois artists, one could be tempted to say that, there is an underlying magic that produces hits each time these artists collaborate or link up .
So many artists have flown private jets to the so-called powerhouse neighboring countries like Nigeria, Ghana, to do collaborations, some we thought would blow out of proportion, but to the greatest dismay, they all ended in a fiasco. The only consolation that can be drawn from those mighty collaborations, could be new relationships created and nothing extra, because we can’t really tell the impact of most of them and how artists benefited.
However, every single time Cameroonian artists have collaborated with a Béninois artist or artists, it has turned out to be a big hit. Examples of some of those collaborations would include:
All these sum up to not less than 15 Million views in the space of three years. Although many artists have discovered this secret, is it safe to say a good number of artists haven’t noticed this or are they just ignoring the open collabo door and prefer to “waste” resources elsewhere? According to some sources, Cameroon’s Blanche Bailly is currently working on another song with Fanicko, and considering Blanche’s energy, we can expect the song to be vibrant.
Moving away from Cameroon, Nigerian powerhouse singer Yemi Alade also released one of the biggest hits of 2020 featuring Angélique Kidjo called “Shekere”.
All this can make one push for a narrative that Benin, has got some undeniable influence, especially when it comes to collaborating with artists from other countries.
