Celebrating 30 years of career:

Ben Decca electrocutes fans in D’la, Y’de

Ben Decca

After a tour that took the Deido native to Washington and Texas in USA. Montreal, Canada, Paris, France and his hometown Douala, Ben Decca decided to also make a stop-over at the nation’s political capital to also hot-up his thousands of fans here.
    Announcing the Yaounde concert at a press conference he gave at the Solomon Tandeng Muna Foundation here, Ben Decca said he was advised to organize his 30th anniversary by a fellow compatriot living in the diaspora. Ben said he and this compatriot were also in accord that the celebrations take the garb of live concerts and not playbacks.
    That is perhaps why Ben Decca was true to himself when he, accompanied by his kid sisters-Grace and Dora, thrilled the many fans that attended the live concert in the banquet hall of the Hotel La Falaise here, on Saturday 21 November 2015.

    “We decided to make this concert live to prove to my fans in Cameroon that i still have much in store to offer to Cameroon music and culture,” Ben told his fans at the start of the concert.
    During the concert that also took the form of a “soiree dancant”, Ben and his two sisters revisited at least 35 of the artiste’s over 150 songs distributed in the 24 albums that he has produced in his 30 plus years as one of Cameroon’s most compelling music composer/singer.
 It should be recalled that inspired by the likes of Eboa Lottin, Dina Bell, Toto Guillaume, Moni Bile and Alhadji Toure, Ben Decca started his music career in 1981.
    Accompanied on stage by other young artistes the likes of Lab’l, Alam Kanté, Nkodo Sitony etc, Ben Decca urged his fans to sing with him and dance with him, as he unfolded his very rich and varied repertoire of makossa songs. To make the concert more lively Ben gave his fans the privilege to propose any song(s) from his repertoire that they wanted him to sing for them.
    And the orchestra that was led by master drumsman -Guy Bilong, did not fail in their duty to produce the sounds that easily drove the fans, the women especially, to near ecstasy.
    “It is my own way of passing the baton and encourage the younger generation, just like my mentors – Eboa Lottin, Joe Mboule, Dina Bell did for me,” Ben said.
    He seized the opportunity to condemn in very strong terms the deviances that now characterize Cameroonian music notably makossa and Bikutsi.
    “Makossa music to a Cameroonian is just like the ndole sauce, whether you like it or not, you must consume it. Makossa is an institution; it does not belong to the coastal people alone; it is for all Cameroonians,” he said, lamenting about the obscenities that some artistes have invited into their songs.
    “Music is something that should be from head-to-heart and from heart-to-heart: we should not take music beneath our belts; when we do that it becomes something else,” he concluded.