TIP: Are the anglophone artists evading TV for social media?

Music promotion and marketing are the tools that enable your music to get to consumers. Two promotion medium exist; Online promotion (Youtube, soundcloud, Facebook, Myspace etc) and offline promotion (Radio, TV, bars, nightclubs etc) .

There’s no gain saying that Anglophone urban artists are the most talented in Cameroon, yet the underdogs in the music business. Why are they effaced from the scene of ‘Hip Hop du Bled’?.

The absolute futility to get their music heard and their music videos watched all over Cameroon has been a major set-back, perceiving Cameroon at their own small corners. Some artists unveil high quality videos only to upload on Youtube and Facebook to gain international acclamation instead of exploring the local market to get a local fanbase in Cameroon. Record labels prefer to sign that artist who has 5000 local fans instead of that artist who has 5000 fans scattered in different countries across the world.

From my research, not up to 10% of Cameroonians are able to watch videos on Youtube or download mp3s with fluidity. Our bandwidth does n’t permit. So, why not endeavour to go to the basics of getting more local fans in your country by putting that video on popular channels in Cameroon. Start painting the picture of a  ”Cameroon” with 10 regions and not just South West and North West. The 24 hrs you spend on Facebook to chat could be used to impact your local area or gain local fans. Get out of your zones of comfort and explore Cameroon . Anglophone artists sometimes feel dejected when they are not nominated for Canal D’or or other reputable awards in Cameroon. It’s not a matter of segregation or the ”anglo thing”.

The simple truth is that you will rarely watch the videos of Anglophone urban artists queued on the popular channels like Canal 2, STV, Equinoxe, CRTV and LTM. These judges won’t go on Youtube or Facebook to search for nominees. The Anglophone band XLM Squad was the first  to win Best Urban artist category at Canal D’or in 2004. If Anglophone artists donot bridge this disparity, they might keep swimming in the same pool of doubt. They should n’t clamour ”foul’ but take a bold step of creating an impact in Cameroon.