Cameroonian Music
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Cameroonian Music
The music of the Cameroon includes diverse traditional and modern musical genres. The best-known contemporary genre is makossa, a popular style that has gained fans across Africa, and its related dance craze bikutsi. The pirogue sailors of Douala are known for a kind of singing called ngoso which has evolved into a kind of modern music accompanied by zanza, balafon, and various percussion instruments. Traditional music The ethnicities of Cameroon include an estimated 250 distinct ethnic groups in five regional-cultural divisions. An estimated 38% of the population are Western highlanders–Semi-Bantu or grassfielders including the Bamileke, Bamum, and many smaller Tikar groups in the northwest. 12% are coastal tropical forest peoples, including the Bassa, Duala, and many smaller groups in the southwest. The southern tropical forest peoples (18%) include the Beti-Pahuin and their sub-groups the Bulu and Fang, the Maka and Njem, as well as, the Baka pygmies. In the semi-a ...
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Makossa
Makossa is a Cameroonian style of urban music. Like much other late 20th century music of Sub-Saharan Africa, it uses strong electric bass rhythms and prominent brass. In the 1980s makossa had a wave of mainstream success across Africa and to a lesser extent abroad. Makossa, which means "(I) dance" in the Douala language, Section "Cultural-based terms" (last line) originated from a Douala dance called the '' kossa''. Emmanuel Nelle Eyoum started using the refrain ''kossa kossa'' in his songs with his group "Los Calvinos". The style began to take shape in the 1950s though the first recordings were not seen until a decade later. There were artists such as Eboa Lotin, Misse Ngoh and especially Manu Dibango, who popularised makossa throughout the world with his song "Soul Makossa" in 1972. The chant from the song, ''mamako, mamasa, maka makossa'', was later used by Michael Jackson in "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" in 1983. Many other performers followed suit. The 2010 World cup al ...
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Northwest Province, Cameroon
The Northwest Region, or North-West Region () is one of ten regions in Cameroon. Its regional capital is Bamenda. The Northwest Region was part of the Southern Cameroons, found in the western highlands of Cameroon. It is bordered to the southwest by the Southwest Region, to the south by the West Region, to the east by the Adamawa Region, and to the north by Nigeria. Various Ambazonian nationalist and separatist factions regard the region as being distinct as a polity from Cameroon. In 1919, the Northwest Region became solely administered by the United Kingdom. In 1961, the region joined the Cameroon. Separatists from the Ambazonia administration regard both the ''Nord-Ouest'' (Northwest) and ''Sud-Ouest'' (Southwest) regions as being constituent components of their envisaged breakaway state. Administration The Northwest Region (known before 2008 as the Northwest Province) is the third most populated province in Cameroon. It has one major metropolitan city, Bamenda, with seve ...
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Chadic Languages
The Chadic languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken in parts of the Sahel. They include 150 languages spoken across northern Nigeria, southern Niger, southern Chad, the Central African Republic, and northern Cameroon. The most widely spoken Chadic language is Hausa, a ''lingua franca'' of much of inland Eastern West Africa. Composition Paul Newman (1977) classified the languages into the four groups which have been accepted in all subsequent literature. Further subbranching, however, has not been as robust; Roger Blench(2006), for example, only accepts the A/B bifurcation of East Chadic. Kujargé has been added from Blench (2008), who suggests Kujargé may have split off before the breakup of Proto-Chadic and then subsequently became influenced by East Chadic. Subsequent work by Joseph Lovestrand argues strongly that Kujarge is a valid member of East Chadic. The placing of Luri as a primary split of West Chadic is erroneous. Bernard Caron (200 ...
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Kirdi
The Kirdi () are the many cultures and ethnic groups who inhabit northwestern Cameroon and northeastern Nigeria. The term was applied to various peoples who had not converted to Islam at the time of colonization and was a pejorative, although some writers have reappropriated it.Steven Nelson, ''From Cameroon to Paris: Mousgoum Architecture In and Out of Africa'' (2007). University of Chicago Press: p. 155. The term comes from the Kanuri word for pagan; the Kanuri people are predominantly Muslim. In the eleventh century, people such as the Fulani converted to Islam and spread throughout West Africa in the following centuries. They had also begun migrating to Cameroon, where they had attempted to convert the pre-existing peoples.Minorities at Risk Project, Chronology for Kirdi in Cameroon, 2004, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/469f38751e.html ccessed 11 September 2020/ref> Therefore, the kirdi, have fewer similarities culturally or linguistically as they do in th ...
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Fula People
The Fula, Fulani, or Fulɓe people ( ff, Fulɓe, ; french: Peul, links=no; ha, Fulani or Hilani; pt, Fula, links=no; wo, Pël; bm, Fulaw) are one of the largest ethnic groups in the Sahel and West Africa, widely dispersed across the region. Inhabiting many countries, they live mainly in West Africa and northern parts of Central Africa, South Sudan, Darfur, and regions near the Red Sea coast in Sudan. The approximate number of Fula people is unknown due to clashing definitions regarding Fula ethnicity. Various estimates put the figure between 25 and 40 million people worldwide. A significant proportion of the Fula – a third, or an estimated 12 to 13 million – are pastoralism, pastoralists, and their ethnic group has the largest nomadic pastoral community in the world., Quote: The Fulani form the largest pastoral nomadic group in the world. The Bororo'en are noted for the size of their cattle herds. In addition to fully nomadic groups, however, there are also semisedentary ...
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Sahel
The Sahel (; ar, ساحل ' , "coast, shore") is a region in North Africa. It is defined as the ecoclimatic and biogeographic realm of transition between the Sahara to the north and the Sudanian savanna to the south. Having a hot semi-arid climate, it stretches across the south-central latitudes of Northern Africa between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea. The Sahel part of Africa includes – from west to east – parts of northern Senegal, southern Mauritania, central Mali, northern Burkina Faso, the extreme south of Algeria, Niger, the extreme north of Nigeria, Cameroon and Central African Republic, central Chad, central and southern Sudan, the extreme north of South Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia. Historically, the western part of the Sahel was sometimes known as the Sudan region (''bilād as-sūdān'' "lands of the Sudan"). This belt was located between the Sahara and the coastal areas of West Africa. There are frequent shortages of food and water due to the dry h ...
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Pygmy
In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature (as opposed to disproportionate dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a population) for populations in which adult men are on average less than tall. The term is primarily associated with the African Pygmies, the hunter-gatherers of the Congo Basin (comprising the Bambenga, Bambuti and Batwa). The terms "Asiatic Pygmies" and "Oceanian pygmies" have been used to describe the Negrito populations of Southeast Asia and Australo-Melanesian peoples of short stature. The Taron people of Myanmar are an exceptional case of a "pygmy" population of East Asian phenotype. Etymology The term ''pygmy'', as used to refer to diminutive people, derives from Greek πυγμαῖος ''pygmaios'' via Latin ''Pygmaei'' (sing. ''Pygmaeus''), derived from πυγμή – meaning a short forearm cubit, or a measure of length corres ...
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Baka (nomadic Central African People)
The Baka people, known in the Congo as Bayaka (''Bebayaka, Bebayaga, Bibaya''), are an ethnic group inhabiting the southeastern rain forests of Cameroon, northern Republic of the Congo, northern Gabon, and southwestern Central African Republic. They are sometimes called a subgroup of the Twa, but the two peoples are not closely related. Likewise, the name "Baka" is sometimes mistakenly applied to other peoples of the area who, like the Baka and Twa, have been historically called pygmies, a term that is now considered derogatory. Identity Baka people are all hunter-gatherers, formerly referred to as pygmies, located in the Central African rain forest. Having average heights of 1.52 meters (5 feet) on average as well as living semi-nomadic lifestyles, the Baka are often discriminated against and marginalized from society. They reside in southeastern Cameroon, northern Gabon and in the northern part of the Republic of Congo. In Congo, the Baka people are otherwise known as the Ba ...
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Njem People
The Njyem (or Njem or Ndjem) are an ethnic group inhabiting the rain forest zone of southern Cameroon and northern Republic of the Congo. In Cameroon, the Njyem live along the road running south from Lomié, passing the government center of Ngoyla and going as far south as Djadom. From there, footpaths extend to Souanke in northern Congo. Their territory lies south of the Nzime people and north of the Bekwel, both related groups. Ngoyla is the largest Njyem center. Souanke is equally important, but is a center shared with the Bekwel. They speak Njyem ("NJY"), one of the Makaa–Njem Bantu languages. History The Makaa–Njyem-speaking peoples entered present-day Cameroon from the Congo River basin or modern Chad between the 14th and 17th centuries. By the 19th century, they inhabited the lands north of the Lom River in the border region between the present-day East and Adamawa Provinces. Not long thereafter, however, the Beti-Pahuin peoples invaded these areas under pressure ...
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Maka People
The Maka or Makaa are a Bantu ethnic group inhabiting the southern rain forest zone of Cameroon. They live primarily in the northern portions of the Upper Nyong division of Cameroon's East Province. Major Maka settlements include Abong-Mbang, Doumé, and Nguélémendouka. Some Maka villages lie over the border into the Centre Province, as well. Most Maka speak a language known as Maka or South Maka, which had an estimated 80,000 speakers in 1987. In the north of Maka territory, speakers use a related language known as Byep, or North Maka. Byep had an estimated 9,500 speakers in 1988. Though they consider themselves a single people, Maka dialects serve as a form of identity as well. The main dialects are Maka are Bebent (Bebende, Biken, Bewil, Bemina), Mbwaanz, and Sekunda. Byep has two dialects, Byep and Besep (Besha, Bindafum). History The Maka and related speakers of Makaa–Njem languages entered present-day Cameroon from the Congo River basin or modern Chad between the ...
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Fang People
__NOTOC__ The Fang people, also known as Fãn or Pahouin, are a Bantu ethnic group found in Equatorial Guinea, northern Gabon, and southern Cameroon.Fang people
Encyclopædia Britannica
Representing about 85% of the total population of Equatorial Guinea, concentrated in the region, the Fang people are its largest ethnic group. The Fang are also the largest ethnic group in Gabon, making up about a quarter of the population. In other countries, in the regions they live, they are one of the most significant and influential ethnic groups notably in Cameroon, where the Fang are part of the Ekang, a tribe that dominates Cameroonian politics with, President

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Beti-Pahuin
The Beti-Pahuin are a Bantu people, Bantu ethnic group located in rain forest regions of Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and São Tomé and Príncipe. Though they separate themselves into several individual clans, they all share a common origin, history and culture Estimated to be well over 8 million individuals in the early 21st century, they form the largest ethnic group in central Cameroon and its capital city of Yaoundé, in Gabon, and in Equatorial Guinea. Their Beti language, Beti languages are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible. Group distinctions The Beti-Pahuin are made up of over 20 individual clans. Altogether, they inhabit a territory of forests and rolling hills that stretches from the Sanaga River in the north to Equatorial Guinea and the northern halves of Gabon to Congo to the south, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the west to the Dja River in the east. Beti The first grouping, called the Beti, consists of the Ewondo (more pr ...
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