Cameroonian music entrepreneur and musician, Nde Ndifonka popularly Wax Dey has been the man at the centre of salvaging Prince Aimé’s music career, making sure the veteran singer recoupes all the deserved proceeds from his revived “Viviane”
The track, released 20 years ago, was recently revived on Tiktok by Ivorian singer Debordo Leekunfa, a miraculous act that has brought back Prince Aimé to the spotlight.
It should be noted that the veteran singer hadn’t make any significant money from the hit song but to ensure that history shouldn’t repeat itself, the services of a music business expert were highly needed and who else would rather be the messiah, but Wax Dey who immediately signed the “Viviane” singer under his record Label Calabash Music.
Signing Prince Aimé, enabled Wax Dey to go all professional, serving contractual terms to artists who had remixed or had plans of remixing the revived hit. Going into contract with Prince Aimé, has fired up the “Magufuli” singer to go all out for the success of the project.
Since coming on board, Wax Dey and Calabash Music have only authorized a few remixes: one with Yemi Alade, another done by Ghanaian singer Wendy Shay, and the hottest remix of “Viviane” at the moment, featuring Maahlox, Magasco, Lily Anoma, and Thérapie.
This remix saw Cameroonians put hands on deck with authorities and big names like Samuel Eto’o, Rigobert Song, all showing love to help the remix become the first ever Cameroonian song to hit almost Four million in 24 hours.
Prior to the release of this remix, Wax Dey, promised to offer Prince Aimé an SUV and a driver, if the song hit the targeted Four million YouTube views in 24 hours.
The track didn’t hit the exact four million views due to a lot of copyright issues and multiply created youtube channels but it surprisingly hit 3million plus views, and the veteran singer is expected to receive his package sometime this week.
While the release with Yemi Alade is yet to be released, We can confirm that Prince Aimé is reaping the fruit of his labor 20 years after his career had gone downhill. Not every artist gets this lucky to still trend in the latter days of their careers.
This moment is special for Prince Aimé, because just three years ago, the artist had gone broke, due to lack of shows in France, as the result of COVID-19. He was seen crying at the Charle De Gaule Airport in France, after missing his flight.
He eventually returned to Cameroon, but life hadn’t been favorable, till recently that “Viviane” was revived. Note should be taken that despite the song being revived, Prince wasn’t making any penny from the streams and virality but thanks to Wax Dey, who had restructured his budding career and there’s no doubt that he’ll make money from his sweat.
Wax Dey, 39, has done bigger things for the African music industry, worked with artists like D’banj, Tiwa Savage, Yemi Alade, Master KG, just to name a few. He is renowned for helped the Cameroonian Zangalewa band against Shakira’s team in 2010. He helped the veteran band to claim their royalties. This is exactly why Wax Dey was the right man for the job and he is realizing some big things since this “Viviane” remix saga surfaced.
There’s need to always give credit to Debordo Leekunfa, for reviving the song. It went global, thanks to him, but for the author of the song, who’s even visually impaired, to make money of this art, a legal mind, with indepth music business knowledge and doings like Wax Dey needed to hopp in the booth.
Signing Prince Aimé might been questionable by the masses, especially as many artists have passed through the label sometimes with little to show for, but Prince Aimé’s signature is definitely worth it.
