Interview: “Artists Will Soon Be Able To Construct, Own Homes”

You were re-elected as Board Chair of SONACAM on April 30, 2026 by an overwhelming majority. How did you feel?
I felt highly humbled by this massive mark of confidence bestowed on me by Cameroonian musicians. This landslide vote demonstrates the fact that they love what we have tried to do at SONACAM in the last five years. It is a call for greater commitment for us to work even harder to bring Cameroonian artists out of misery.

Did you expect such a score? Or it took you by surprise?
The general assembly was preceded by a smear campaign against me by my opponents. But I remained steadfast in my belief that I would be re-elected, given the achievements we made. What surprised me was the landslide victory - 733 votes (for me) against 45 (Messi Ambroise), and 7 null votes is not a given. 

The election is now over. What do you plan to do for SONACAM and Cameroon's performing artistes in general in the coming five years?
We hope to institute payments every three months as it's done in developed countries. We would subscribe to a health insurance for Cameroonian artists. We would finalise a convention with Credit Foncier du Cameroun to enable all productive Cameroonian artists who own title deeds to apply for loans to build their homes. We equally hope to construct music palaces in three Cameroonian towns - Bamenda, Yaounde and Douala. This is a project for which we have already secured funding from Deutsche Bank USA. It would, on completion, help relaunch Cameroon music and create many jobs in the music industry. 

You took over SONACAM already embroiled in lots of controversies. How many of them were you able to resolve?
When we took over SONACAM some 5 years ago, the company was not really existing. In four years, the team we took over from paid artists just two times. My team in five years paid 9 times. Today we pay artists through Express Union in their neighbourhoods. We introduced digital professional cards for artists to be able to identify themselves. We reorganized the documentation service. We now count 7,734 artists who have released 105,000 FCFA  which have physical and digital files visible across the world through an application called WIPOCONNECT offered to us by the World Intellectual Property Organisation, WIPO. 

The payment of artistes' rights (royalties) has remained a hydra-headed problem. What is the way forward?
We have done a lot to facilitate payments through Express Union. We equally set a minimum amount for all those who enter repartitions to ensure that artists earn respectable amounts. We equally drastically increased the number that feature in distributions paying a minimum of 1,600 artists every time we have paid. 
We have signed a number of contracts which would enable us collect generate income. These include the collection at source of 12F per crate of beer sold in Cameroon following agreements signed with stakeholders in the Cameroon brewery sector. We can also mention the project to get all Cameroonian public administration departments to pay authors’ rights. Once this money comes in, we will increase the amounts and number o...