Interview with King Phil, Prez of Association of NW musicians.

What are your impressions after receiving your author’s rights due?

I should not say this is any author’s rights due; it is some kind of gift given by the head of state for artistes. When you call it author’s rights I don’t understand, because the criteria that were used in the redistribution were not clear. In fact I don’t know which criteria were used for this redistribution.

We hear that a global sum of three hundred million was shared out to musicians, but we don’t know where the money came from and what method was used in the sharing. So, to answer your question I can only say I am disappointed. And I think many of my colleagues feel the same like me.

What criteria should be used for sharing authors’ rights?

I must first of all tell you that for more than six years now we have not had any meaningful authors’ rights. But today we are called up and handed 100.000 frs each. How did they come about the 100.000 frs? In authors’ rights not everybody is the same; artistes are categorized.

So when you give the same amount to just whoever then there is a problem; there are skeletons in your cupboard. For instance what explains the fact that all the musicians from North West and South West had only 100.000 frs each.

Even Adeline Mbenkum who is vice president of SOCAM also had 100.000frs; Loh Benson who is the pioneer musician in North West had 100.000frs, Ngalim Adreas, Ambicad, Billy Carlson, Etah Unique, Pa Ngalim Andreas, Don Krisman and even the big names like John Minang all had 100.000frs. And 100.000 frs was the lowest amount given to any musician. This means that all anglophone musicians belong to the lowest category? This is not fair.

In fact, we are disappointed, very disappointed. There is really a problem that must be addressed. Another source of frustration is that of the 1159 musicians who were shortlisted for the redistribution on less than 50 came from NW and SW. In fact we were only 23 from the NW.

But our musicians’ association in the NW counts more than 200 members. So what happened to the others?

So some musicians had more than 100.000 with others as much as one million francs?

Yes! I learnt that some people had 1 million but like I said earlier I don’t know which criteria were used in choosing those who received above 100.000 frs. But it is interesting and intriguing that all musicians from NW and SW, no matter their status in the music milieu should have a flat amount of 100.000 frs. This is not normal. In fact it is scandalous.

We understand that the minister set up a special ad hoc committee to manage the redistribution process. Are saying that the committee did a poor job?

I don’t know whether there was a committee or not and who the members were. May be our big brother Loh Benson should know because he was a member of the so called “Comite de redressement”, what ever that means. And may be I should tell whoever wants to know that as musicians some of us are also parents.

When you give us 100.000frs knowing that with this money we will pay our transport back to Bamenda and Buea, some people even borrowed transport to come here and we have spent two days here, meaning we have been feeding and lodging ourselves. So after all these expenses what do expect us to take home. We also have to send our children to school. In short we are discouraged.

What do you intend to do to avoid such a situation in the future?

The minister oversaw all the processes leading to the redistribution and if she could allow such injustice to happen to us NW and SW musicians then we cannot continue to count on her for a solution to our problems. Besides, she is not minister for NW musicians alone but for all Cameroonians. More so, we also realize that the minister has no solution to the plight of musicians. That is why we have resolved to send a memo directly to the president of the republic.

So what exactly will you tell the president in your petition?

We will make the president to know that we the musicians of NW and SW are not satisfied with the way we are treated by the ministry of Arts and Culture. We will let him know that musicians from the NW and SW are very disappointed with the ministry. They treat us as if we don’t belong to this country.

But we know that Cameroon is our beloved and only country. And we are proud, noble and respectful citizens of Cameroon. We respect the institutions of our beloved country. But the institutions should also treat us like citizens. We don’t want to cause disorder and that is why we are writing directly to him, who is our father and the father of all Cameroonians. They should give us our rights. They should make us feel that we are musicians too.

But the minister of Arts and Culture is your sister from the North West. Why can you not approach her as a family and table your problems to her? What is the rapport between NW musicians and the minister, Ama Tutu Muna?

Without mincing or wincing I should say the rapport is not the best. Before this distribution of authors’ rights they first distributed guitars to musicians and no one of us received a guitar. My brother you can see for yourself that so many things are going wrong. Truly we are not happy, not at all.