Steemit Engagement Challenge S3-W2|All About My Local Music : Music With Cameroon! || By @b-naj

Steem greetings to all my fellow publishers in the Hot News Community. Special acknowledgement to all leaders here in the Hot News Community, and the Steemit Team as a whole. I am here to present my entry into this topic of the engagement challenge.

I live in a country called Cameroon. It is fixed in Western Africa right in between Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea. Over the years, back dated from the 1970s, Cameroon has given rise to lively dance music with great artists throughout time.

Before i proceed, i'd like to give some definitions of What Music Is.

Definitions:

• Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content.
  The creation of music is commonly divided into musical composition, musical improvisation and musical performance.
  SOURCE

• Music is an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.
  SOURCE

We love the use of native/traditional instruments which gives our music of origin so lively taste compared to foreign jams. We are more into diverse traditional musics, alongside modern music genres today. We are well known for our contemporary music style called Makossa which is well known throughout Africa today. We also developed a related dance style called Bikutsi. The two (2) main genres of music in Cameroon are Makossa and Bikutsi to the best of my knowledge (NB: feel free to correct me please), but so many new genres have sprouted from the combined mixture of these genres in so many different ways at different times. Such genres include Afro Pop, Afro Trap, Mboko, and many more.

• With Bikutsi, the dance style is somewhat wild and crazy as the beats produced by the raw instruments jam through your mind, with the singer sings even louder. We have the likes of K-Tino, Anne Marie and Los Cameroes who can be seen today as the founders of this style of music. Today's generation of artist are not left out. Such artist like Ténor, Mani Bella, Lady Ponce and many more have withheld this brand of music for the present generation.
  Recalling groups like Les Tetes Brulees who performed Bikutsi music in a rock style manner, with streak painted faces.

• Makossa is a very powerful genre all over the world today. Its rhythm is created with the combine force of a saxophone and an electric bass guitar. This is themed the music for the soul (i ain't talking of Jazz 😂) because when the electric bass guitar is absent, this genre is taken to a whole new level.
  One of thee most popular artists on an international scope is Manu Dibango who was a master with the Saxophone, however his real name was Emmanuel N'djoke Dibango. His hit song Soul Makossa got recorded as the first African song to feature amongst the US top 40. His music style added taste to Makossa as it could be reshuffled with other instruments to give different unique rhythms. Today, so many rhythms can be produced with ease.
  The likes of Sally Nyolo also took the music of Cameroon to an international audience.

These prominent artists paved a way for the artists of this generation today. Today, visitors home and abroad seek this style of music since it is no more seemingly farfetched.

Most definitely yes! Countries like South Africa, Nigeria, Congo, amongst many, relate so much with their style of music. It is worth noting that Makossa is known on an international scale today, and has spread like wild fire throughout most parts of Africa. It goes without saying that so many artists today on an international scope have adopted and retuned the Makossa way of music. Nonetheless, it doesn't take away the fact that it remains a product of the Makossa genre of music.

The key influencer of these similarities is the fact that Africans in particular enjoy the use of native /traditional instruments in their music up till date, and believe me when i say it maintains that unique taste in the instrumentals.

For this final part, i'll do my best to bring out some hot music that i believe you would enjoy listening to. I apologize if you can't understand every lyrics since my country speaks a ton of sub native languages. Listen and judge for yourself.