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Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Its coastline lies on the Bight of Biafra, part of the Gulf of Guinea, and the Atlantic Ocean. Due to its strategic position at the crossroads between West Africa and Central Africa, it has been categorized as being in both camps. Cameroon's population of nearly 31 million people speak 250 native languages, in addition to the national tongues of English and French, or both. Early inhabitants of the territory included the Sao civilisation around Lake Chad and the Baka hunter-gatherers in the southeastern rainforest. Portuguese explorers reached the coast in the 15th century and named the area Rio dos Camarões, which became Cameroon in English. Fulani soldiers founded the Adamawa Emirate in the north in the 19th century, and various ethnic groups of the west and northwest established powerful chiefdoms and fondoms.
The Bakweri are a Bantu ethnic group of the Republic of Cameroon. They are closely related to Cameroon's coastal peoples, particularly the Duala and Isubu.
Makossa is a music genre originating in Douala, Littoral Region, Cameroon in the late 20th century. Like much other music of Sub-Saharan Africa, it uses strong electric bass rhythms and prominent brass. Makossa uses guitar accompaniments, in the forms of solo and rhythm guitar, with a main singer and a choir of backup singers, with the focus being on the texture of the guitar, the role it plays in the song, the relationship between it and other instruments, the lyrical content and languages sung as well as their relationship with the music, the uses of various percussion instruments, including the bottle, the groove of the bass as well as the drums, and the use of technical knowledge and microprocessors to make the music. It is in common time (4/4) for the vast majority of cases. Language-wise, it is typically sung in French, Duala or Pidgin English. Tempo-wise, it is typically in between 130 and 170 BPM. It traditionally consisted of guitar-picking techniques that borrows from bikutsi; with a guitar-structure of a guitar switching from solo to rhythm from assiko; supplanted with complex bass grooves, and gradually picked up on brass section, from funk and later in the 70s, string section, from disco. It along with this acquired the sebene from Congolese rumba. In the 1980s makossa had a wave of mainstream success across Africa and to a lesser extent abroad. It is considered to be one of the greatest Cameroonian and even African "adventures" as a music.
A roots revival is a trend which includes young performers popularizing the traditional musical styles of their ancestors. Often, roots revivals include an addition of newly composed songs with socially and politically aware lyrics, as well as a general modernization of the folk sound.
The music of the Cameroon includes diverse traditional and modern musical genres. The best-known contemporary genre is makossa, a popular style that has gained fans across Africa, and its related dance craze bikutsi.
Emmanuel N'Djoké "Manu" Dibango was a Cameroonian musician and songwriter who played saxophone and vibraphone. He developed a musical style fusing jazz, funk, and traditional Cameroonian music. His father was a member of the Yabassi ethnic group, while his mother was a Duala. He was best known for his 1972 single "Soul Makossa". The song has been referred to as the most sampled African song in addition Dibango, himself, as the most sampled African musician in history. He died from COVID-19 on 24 March 2020.
The Cameroon People's Democratic Movement is the ruling political party in Cameroon. Previously known as the Cameroonian National Union, which had dominated Cameroon politics since independence in the 1960s, it was renamed in 1985. The national president of the CPDM is Paul Biya, the president of Cameroon, while the secretary-general of the party's Central Committee is Jean Nkuete.
Bikutsi is a musical genre from Cameroon. It developed from the traditional styles of the Beti, or Ewondo, people, who live around the city of Yaoundé. It was popular in the middle of the 20th century in West Africa. It is primarily dance music.
"Soul Makossa" is a song by Cameroonian saxophonist and songwriter Manu Dibango, released as a single in 1972. It is the most sampled African song in history. The song was originally recorded as the B-side for "Hymne de la 8e Coupe d'Afrique des Nations", a song celebrating the Cameroon national football team's accession to the quarterfinals of the Africa Cup of Nations football tournament, as well as Cameroon's hosting the games for the first time; the lyrics were written by Cameroonian poet and musicologist S.M. Eno Belinga. Except for some words in English, it was written in Duala, a native dialect continuum from Cameroon. Manu Dibango later recorded a new version for his 1994 album Wakafrika, titled "Mouvement Ewondo".
Atna Jean Emmanuel (Manu) Njock, aka Zekuhl, is a singer, guitarist, percussionist and a songwriter of world music. He presents a Bolbo-Jazz style. He sings in Bàsàa, French and English.
Sam Fan Thomas is a Cameroonian musician associated with Makossa. He began in the late 1960s and had his first hit with "Rikiatou". His "African Typic Collection" was an international hit in 1984 and is perhaps his best known work. Thomas began his career in the early 1970s as a guitarist in the Cameroonian band Tigres Noires. He stayed with that band until 1976 when he launched his solo career.
Moni Bilé is a Cameroonian makossa musician. He was the best-selling makossa performer of the 1980s, and his album Amour & Espérance was an international hit that extended the worldwide popularity of the genre.
Petit-Pays is a Cameroonian musician.
Francis Bebey was a Cameroonian musicologist, writer, composer, and broadcaster.
Camfranglais, Francanglais, or Francamglais is a vernacular of Cameroon, containing grammatical and lexical elements from Cameroonian French, Cameroonian English and Cameroonian Pidgin English, in addition to lexical contributions from various indigenous languages of Cameroon.
Sports in Cameroon is practiced widely by the population and advocated by the national government. Cameroonians take pride in victories at international competitions, making sport an important source of national unity. Traditional sports in Cameroon include canoe racing, swimming, tug of war, and wrestling. Wrestling has featured in the initiation rites and other ceremonies of ethnic groups such as the Bakweri and the Duala.
Jean-Pierre Dikongué Pipa is a Cameroonian film director and writer. He produced Cameroon's first full-length feature film, Muna Moto, in 1975. Dikongué Pipa's films deal with the interrelationships between elements of traditional Cameroonian culture and the wider world.
Dance in Cameroon is an integral part of the tradition, religion, and socialising of the country's people. Cameroon has more than 200 traditional dances, each associated with a different event or situation. Colonial authorities and Christian missionaries discouraged native dances as threats to security and pagan holdovers. However, after Cameroon's independence, the government recognised traditional dance as part of the nation's culture and made moves to preserve it.
The Cameroonian National Action Movement was a political party in French Cameroons.
Emmanuel Eboa Lotin was a Cameroonian musical artist who created music based on the style of Makossa, native to his home country.
References
- Chrispin, Pettang, directeur, Cameroun: Guide touristique. Paris: Les Éditions Wala.
- DeLancey, Mark W., and Mark Dike DeLancey (2000): Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon (3rd ed.). Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press.
- Mbaku, John Mukum (2005). Culture and Customs of Cameroon. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
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