TIPTOPSTARS

Passion for something is one thing. Hard work is another. But skills in it must be present, if success is expected. The third of these options is a reality, when it comes to Missy BK. Her savoir faire in music is as glaring as the impressive reaction that follows each of the singer’s music outings. This time, it has even been more spectacular with the release of Ndolo, a new singe that seems to be beating the brilliant records the young Cameroonian singer had created in the past.

In a typical Missy BK style, Ndolo dropped like a stun, getting every music lover off their feet. It is a love song par excellence, sweetened by an irresistible melody that replicates the Canada-based contemporary artist’s giftedness in the art she knows best.

In the 3.19-minutes-long track featuring ISH and sung in English and pidgin (lingual franca), the author declares her filial love for parents, yet reveals her attachment to siblings. In words like “I no di kolo, na ndolo”, literally meaning she is madly in love, the singer aims at portraying the strength love can exerts on humanity, especially at a time the world is going through avoidable crisis, some of which are a result of the lack of this much-needed value.

Produced by Willbeatz Productions, Ndolo, from all indications is making great in-roads with the media playing a salient role in the track’s promotion. The artist has lined up radio/TV interviews this and next week, to tell the Ndolo story. Amongst them are the ones with the Buea-based Mount Cameroon FM, run by CRTV and Batimu FM, run from Belgium. These interviews are supposed to have taken place by now.

On Thursday February 19, 2015, Missy BK will be on La Voix de St Laurent Quebec and two days later, she will talking on CIBL Radio, Montreal. Sunday February 23 will be POM Radio’s turn with the young and dynamic radio host Prince Oro. On Monday February 24, the author of Ndolo joins the Africa Crest Radio team in talking about her new single.

Ndolo (meaning love in Duala – Cameroonian mother tongue spoken by the people of Douala, Cameroon’s economic capital, and its environs) comes less than three months after her organization, the Missy BK Foundation shared love with some 38 orphans in Buea via a philanthropic gesture. That the December event and her newfound passion in humanitarian activities would have inspired Ndolo, is what TIPTOPSTARS will be finding out from Missy BK. But for now, savour Ndolo and show the artist some love by supporting the project.

Fears that Cameroonian indigenous genres could one day disappear in favour of contemporary music may soon be a thing of the past. You may only have lesser unadulterated Cameroonian traditional music, but much of it is being fused into other contemporary genres to get new results. That too is creativity and it is but normal that artists act as such.

For one thing, Cameroonian singers of the contemporary epoch still hold makossa in very high esteem and have not parted away from it. In their productions, a good number of them have dug into the archives, brought back some of the finest makossa pieces in the yesteryears, fused them with rap, hip-hop, afro-hop, afro-rap, you name and the results have been brilliantly crafted music, excellent for consumption. That is one of the strong points of singers of this generation.

Two of such singers have been on this and after a lot of behind-the-scene work, they have decided to emerge with their own version which some observers are already describing as a jamais vu. A single, Original Makossa, released to that effect is now considered as one of the best things that happened within this new dispensation. Original Makossa, released a couple of weeks ago is a catchy melodious track that would stay firm on every taste bud, so long as you get exposed to it. Its authors, M. Ngede Smith alias Vivid and Yekabong Carven aka Abs who make up Realm Squad (name of the band) are as vibrant in their singing and dancing just as Original Makossa is soul-searching.

The video of Original Makossa is sweet mixture of impeccable images and sound and artistically successful choreography. This is handiwork of two of Cameroon’s finest music video directors, at least in recent years – Nkeng Stephens and Mosima P. In the video illustrated by album jacket photos of some makossa legends including Eboa Lotin, Kotto Bass (both of blessed memory), Many Dibango, San Fan Thomas, etc, the Realm Squad is reminding the world that makossa is a Cameroonian creation and everyone has to dance to the beautiful tunes of this great genre.

Original Makossa is mostly sung in French (one of Cameroon’s official languages) and pidgin (lingual franca).

Realm Squad is an extraction from a former Bamenda-based four-man (students at the time) dance crew (Vivid, Abs, Gilo Brown and Banky). Upon the relocation of Gilo Brown and Banky to the USA and Nigeria respectively, Vivid and Abs took up Buea as new station. It was in the regional headquarters of the South West that they sprang and Original Makossa is the maiden professional product out in the market under the banner of Realm Squad. It is produced under Max Empire, a music label run by the group.

Just like it is hard to distinguish a comedian’s jokes from their seriousness, so too you may always be tempted to think that real moments in an actor’s life are happening on a movie set. But sight of delegates with participants wearing official UN badges that run down from their neck and world flags-flooded conference halls, a scenario typical of the United Nations systems, tells you it is no movie. It is all about official world matters - work, work and work! That is a new experience international actress, Merlisa Determined is meant to start getting used to, apart from movie set activities she has commonly done since she opted for movie acting.

In her new status as United Nations Ambassador with Special Consultative Status from UNECOSOC,  Merlisa has since the start of last week been on her first outing in that capacity and is currently taking part in one of the several conference holding in Geneva, Switzerland.

Amongst other things, the actress cum UN Ambassador has been involved in discussions  at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights which discussions centre around business and activities of the Strategic Alignment of Like Minds – Insurmountable Women, under whose direct banner, she is in the UN today.

“I had a warm reception here Ernest and everyone has been very friendly, cooperative and helpful to me,” the award-winning actress told TIPTOPSTARS when we reached out to Merlisa. “It has generally been a great experience here in Geneva and I must say it's an honor to participate on world issues and networking with people from across the globe. I'm learning quite much. The sessions are very enriching.”

Another session which would definitely be more enriching is the screening of DIFRET, film released a couple days ago, co-produced by Angelina Jolie and directed by Zeresenay Berhane Mehari. The film highlights some of the virtues propagated by the United Nations including economic, social and political rights for women. The screening of DIFRET in will be followed by a discussion on the movie’s theme(s).

Merlisa, born in the Caribbean Islands is an experienced movie actress who has won several awards and had worked a great deal with filmmakers and artists around the world. She became an accredited UN Ambassador on September 18, 2014 following her devoted efforts in helping women and young girls in the U.S., Africa and the Caribbean Islands from less privileged backgrounds. She currently resides in the United States.

Just like the national day, celebrated on May 20 each year, the Youth Day (YD) is such a big thing in Cameroon. It has since been commemorated (especially by Cameroonian youths living out of the country) and celebrated back home every February 11. This year, it was not different.

Our parents had recounted sweet stories of the Empire Days, similar to we experienced soon after the latter days were over. Each generation may argue that theirs was the most exciting. But, we may be closest to the truth to mention that the 80s provided excellent Youth Day moments which would constantly add warmth at heart when recalled and shared.

Prior to this day, Cameroon’s number one executive routinely addresses the youth during which he exalts them to be a leading force of every good value one can imagine. Whether the message is digested or not, the key elements that constitute this celebration are the same – march past, games, etc. But perhaps, what makes youth day celebrations stand out is how different generations experienced it. More to that, recalling how your generation lived Youth Day is phenomenal, whenever it that time of the year when this event comes up. This writer cannot be indifferent too. He has his own Youth Day experience.

I can still remember my first youth day celebration. Coming from Lower Bafut from GS Mbakong, it was quite a herculean task because we had to travel a great distance. In fact, we had to travel a day before to stay the night in Upper Bafut . I had made a wooded money storage box which we called “bank” in our days. Each time I had a coin, I would drop it in the box. So, on this occasion, I had a surplus. When I had to ’’ broke the bank’’,(this was the normal language used to mean opening the box to see how much had been saved) for my first Youth Day, the money was not enough to take me to Upper Bafut and back - ‘na cry this?’. I cried because I wasn’t going to have the kind of satisfaction Youth Day was known to provide. The practice of saving money in view of the Youth Day was not an easy task. If one didn’t have the strong will, you ended up not having enough money for the celebrations.

My mum was quick to react – “Tai {short form of Titus}, no worry you go go, wipe your eyes,” she consoled me. I felt like a dark cloud was being replaced by a clear sky. Of course, my mum is a woman of her words. She did everything possible to see that I participated in this maiden Youth Day event in my life.

Way back in the 80s, we will go to ‘march’, as it was fondly called with the sum of 1.000frs and still have some change or ‘balance’. But today, I wonder which child with just that sum can have their yoghourt, sugar cane , krukru, adakwa, above all eat bread and sardines. It was on this rare occasion that some of us ate bread and sardines. You were a ’tif pikin’ (thief) if you ate it on an ordinary day.

I was glad because that was the last for those of us from Lower Bafut to go celebrate at Upper Bafut. The following year, our school GS Mbakong was going to be the centre for all schools from that area. Hahahaha!, interesting story you must be saying. Yeah! indeed how nice to reflect back to those days.

One thing with those coming from far off places was that they never had the chance to witness all the activities. The most important for them was the march past. I vividly remember how we would wait under the scorching sun for the arrival of the Divisional Officer who would never come on time. The D.O or Massa D.O as he was fondly called was the number one executive officer of the Division and so was automatically the official presiding officer at the Youth Day ceremony.

With sparkling white canvass and socks, clean blue uniform shirts and khaki short s, we would be very excited to see this gentleman. He was a demi god to us.

After march past on my first YD celebration, we bought items and ate abd the next thing was to head back to Lower Bafut. We were packed in Land Rovers and Toyota Hilux vans like ‘sardine’. to take a vehicle back home and in my case only the Land Rovers and the Toyota Hilux vehicles solved our problems. We will be ‘’packed like sardines’’ and one thing I enjoyed most was when the vehicle galloped in potholes. Why I enjoyed it, I cannot tell. It was quite dangerous because the vehicle could stumble, yet we had no choice. Till date nothing has actually changed on the Lower Bafut-Upper Bafut stretch of raod, nor the road leading to Wum, headquarters of Menchum Division.

When our primary school became a centre for youth day celebrations many parents were relieved .One very remarkable thing those days was that we were exposed to all forms of challenges on YD. It was a kind of freedom day where you did what you wanted, after all ‘’ dough dey for kwa. Some of us were therefore exposed to even gambling. I vividly remember how Neba, a childhood peer used a necklace for one such gambling games. With a 25frs fee, you were expected to place your fingers in such a way that it would not get stuck. If your finger got stuck, Neba had your money.

Now, I have left the village and was in Bamenda to attend secondary school. My school, Government Bilingual High School GBHS Bamenda, was one of the leading State-run secondary schools in the then NW Province and a Youth Day march past centre. In Bamenda, the challenges of Youth Day celebrations were even greater. By 1987 GBHS Bamenda had almost 4500 students as enrolment. Other schools such as Nacho Comprehensive College and Longla Comprehensive College had almost the same enrolment. Every student by then was obliged to take part in the march past. Here we had graduated from the normal canvas shoes to black shoes. It was even more exciting to be part of the march past. Class registration lists were brought to the marching ground at the Bamenda Municipal stadium and your name was ticked if you marched. If you did not, you were severely punished.

Well, as I grew up, my attitude towards Youth Day changed. Preparations geared towards the day had nothing to do with workshops aimed at sensitizing the youth and all was centred on sporting activities, traditional dances and march past. After they left school, what next? No employment! Roaming the streets! Then, an entrance examination into a professional with 2,500 places and we have more than 15,000 candidates going in. Other frustrating episodes for young people and you name them. With these on my mind, I soon told myself Youth Day should be reconsidered else, it will be turning youths around with no positive impact.