Upcoming artistes are still the fragile talented brains of every industry. Most of them have little or no orientation when it comes to handling the first stages of their musical careers. As a result, they often go astray by committing petit mistakes which in turn hunts them down in the future. In order for them to discover this quickly and get back on track and for the aspiring ones still to get into the game to avoid such errors, we decided to come up with some of the mistakes they usually make.

Error Number 1
Cover Art Design: This is what tells the public in image about the song you are about to deliver. This is one of the most horrible mistakes most Cameroon upcoming artiste tend to make. Some go as low as dragging us back by using the mobile application called Photo Grid to design a cover art for their music. As if that is not disastrous enough some upcoming artistes now use WhatsApp Status to design cover arts. Mind you, no blogger/promoter will take you serious with such designs, talk less of the fans.

Error Number 2
Waiting For Angel Michael To Come Fly You To The Top:
This is very common with many upcoming artistes nowadays, they believe every industry has a Good Samaritan who will one day just pop out of the blues and sign them to their record labels. So instead of working hard, they spend night and day sending private messages to established artistes and label owners to come to their aid. This nonsense needs to stop.

Error Number 3
You Do Too Many Covers:
The best way to sell yourself is by going original. Yes one or two covers won’t hurt, but when you keep on dropping covers each and every time it becomes boring. Many will even treat you to be the King/Queen of covers. Worst of it is doing mashups for almost every time you want to release. Some music investors just want to listen to that creativity and originality you can put out. So my dear, avoid doing to many covers.

Error Number 4
Be Mindful Of The Teasers, Snippets, behind The Scenes Footages You Send Out Before Releasing A song:
My dear upcoming artistes, you are not yet Kendrick Lamar, Neither are you Davido, Jovi or Stanley Enow. Many of you are too excited when you are about to release new music or videos. You send out every information about your projects before they are released. This is a normal thing in Cameroon. A friend will announce the release of his artiste friend’s song and telling the public that they should anticipate, they won’t regret it. Question here is, the song isn’t released yet, how do you know we won’t regret losing our data? That aside, many upcoming artiste copy what the stars are doing, if you send out behind the scenes of your video, locations, video vixens, dance moves before the initial video, why should the fans anticipate such? You guys should work on this please.

Error Number 5
Signing Wrong Record Deals:
Most upcoming artistes are ignorant about signing deals. Some are just too excited to be signed. As a result, they sign deals without looking at the contract terms and studying them. Few months or a year later, you hear they are leaving labels one after the other. Such decisions need a lot of reflecting and guidance. Avoid stepping into such traps. A lot of labels will only want to use your services while feeding you with peanuts.

Error Number 6
Careless Expenditures:
Nowadays, if the effects of your videos isn’t the best, you haven’t arrived. The fact that you are upcoming and you’re still to prove yourself doesn’t mean you should lavish all your resources in a single project. Upcoming artiste in Cameroon will spend close to 200.000F for an audio production. The normal 1.000.000F for music videos and 200.000F for promotion. As an upcoming artiste, this is literally one of the biggest mistakes you can ever make in your career. If the writeup was a countdown, then this is surely going to take the 1st spot. This to me is like trying to hit a jackpot. Putting all your eggs in one basket. Then you be like; “If I blow, good and fine, if I don’t, Lord knows I tried”. This is actually the cost of an album if you work with your fellow upcoming producer, director and blogger.

Error Number 7
Confusion on your music genre
Yes you are multi talented, you want people to know you can sing Afropop, Afrotrap, Soul, Zouk, Rumba and can even rap, so you go ahead and drop all this in one album. A few of you are trying to do this. The earlier you pick your genre and deal with it, the better.

Error Number 8
Demanding Pay For Your First Shows
Yes music production isn’t free, you need to pay your bills and cover expenses. Many of you have blocked your chances to shine because when you were called to perform, you set up an unbelievable price tag even the organizers did not pay the mid-career artists whereas the organizers are doing you a favour by making you visible. A good example is the Davido Concert in Douala scheduled to take place on the 17th of March 2018. Artistes like Boy Tag have been selected to perform. Everyone knows that is going to be a big stage. If you were in his shoes as an upcoming artiste, will you set a fee?

Error Number 9
Getting into senseless beefs with fellow upcoming artistes.
Yes beefing in the industry is cool, but you need to be somewhere there before you start beefing and comparing yourselves with fellow upcoming artistes. Nobody will find it interesting to follow if you haven’t made waves yet. Work and put in the music you have decided to do. When you are at the Mid-Career or Established phase you wouldn’t even be the one throwing punches and clapbacks but your fans.

Error Number 10.
Be Humble & Patient:
This is actually the key to success for every upcoming artiste. This point worthy enough also cuts across all works of life. We’ve noticed that many upcoming artistes are so impatient and this hastily attitude never ends well with them. There’s a time and opportunity for everyone to shine. It took the Jovis, the Salatiels, the Mr. Leos and Stanley Enows decades to break the iceberg. You arrived just yesterday, you want to hammer today. It doesn’t work that way.

2018! The year for every hardworking upcoming artiste to have a say. You have the yam and the knife.

Victor Kange
#NaTengiYesu