China Sings and Dances Makossa: Liu du Kamer’s Oeuvre as Cultural Appropriation and Chinese “Invasion” into Cameroonian Cultural Terrain

Abstract

Since its creation in the 1950s, Makossa (a popular Cameroonian music genre) has remarkably been revolutionised thanks to both endogenous and exogenous contemporary influences. One of these exogenous influences derives from Zhen Ping’s creativity. Also known as Liu du Kamer, Zhen Ping is a Chinese national who migrated to Cameroon in 1996, developed a passion for Makossa music production, pursued a brief musical career, and unfortunately died in 2006, a few years after launching his musical career. Through various techniques of music appropriation, Liu gave a Chinese touch to Makossa. He rethought the music genre and developed new dance techniques. His musical works constitute a relevant corpus for any theorisation of the archetype of Cameroonian and Chinese music. Although extraordinary and interesting, Liu’s appropriation of Makossa has not attracted the attention of either Cameroonian or non-Cameroonian scholars. Only a few (online) newspapers and magazines have dwelled on the artiste’s motivations and philosophy of the arts. In view of filling this gap in knowledge, the present descriptive study examines the nature, meaning and socio-political value of Liu’s musical oeuvre in a context of Sino-pessimism in Cameroon. Using secondary sources and critical observations, the paper pursues three principal objectives: first, it examines Liu’s oeuvre as a new aesthetic in the Makossa tradition. Second, it analyses Liu’s contribution to the development of the Makossa genre through the two cultural theories of appreciation and appropriation. Finally, the paper analyses Liu’s musical oeuvre vis-a-vis anti-China sentiments in Cameroon. It argues that, although key to the reinvention of Makossa, Liu’s musical oeuvre is visibly undermined thanks partly to China’s image crisis in Cameroon.     

Keywords

• Cultural Appropriation
• Cultural Melting Pot
• Makossa
• Cultural Appreciation
• Sino-pessimism

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