When I look at how some rappers and hip-hop artists in other African countries excel and make money from their craft, I’m always very tempted to ask questions like why is this not the same case with a country like Cameroon with a lot of uncategorized talents? As someone who listens to rapper from the African continent, I noticed that hip-hop artists in Cameroon in particular seem to be struggling to get their art to a wider audience and are not really making a lot of money from it.
Some questions you might want to ask yourself, are whether Cameroonian artists ain’t good enough or is it just that there is no money in the country to fan a musical dream ? It is however shocking when you see how much many foreign artists are paid in this country. You can’t say Cameroonian artists are not talented especially when you get to listen to some of them deliver. So, why can’t they also make money too from their craft? Do they just lack marketing skills or better teams that could help them scale through?
If you have also found yourself in this state of pandemonium, then you’ll feel why I’m dismayed. Coming across an artist like Lill humble , you’d be proud of how much of a good rapper he is, but you’ll equally get worried as to whether his talent too would fetch him many coins in this jungle ! For the records, most Cameroonian artists are not surviving from paid shows nor money made from music, lot are surviving from side hustles. It tells you that if there are no side hustles, music would not be an employer to many of these artists.
So what’s wrong? Something is definitely wrong somewhere beyond just promo, exposure and support your own. It’s not easy with other artists, but the difficulty of being a hip hopper in Cameroon is that, you might be made to feel like you are not good enough.
Check out this new song by rapper Lill Humble Featuring Lyrical Joe, and tell us what you think.
