Artiste and the role of arts in society is to inform, educate, and entertain. The artiste arts apart from entertaining should be to denounce injustice, call for justice, and stand for the people. The Cameroonian atmosphere for four years now has not been a peaceful one because the people of Northwest and Southwest have been in distress. Fans and followers from these regions have been disappointed with their artists for not voicing their plight louder but playing safe. Our artiste on their part wants to solve a political problem by being apolitical. Some artists want to be leaders meanwhile the content they release out there won’t make what they say credible. You can’t sing “ton calecon”, “tu veux Enlever” etc, and expect to be credible and taken seriously by the masses when you talk about their plight. An artist like Richard Bona will always be taken seriously because of the kind of content he puts out there. He thinks about the people’s plight and uses his arts and influence as a leader to voice their concerns.
Who is a leader and what is leadership? Jacob Morgan writes this about who a leader is; ” A leader is someone who can see how things can be improved and who rallies people to move toward that better vision. Just being able to motivate people isn’t enough — leaders need to be empathetic and connect with people.”
My question now is, how will our artiste be remembered? Will they be remembered as those who amplified moral decadence via their arts or they will be remembered as those who used their arts to instill moral values? Will they be remembered as those who misused their influence or those who used it to bring change and freedom to their people? As an artist how do you want to be remembered?