{"id":40934,"date":"2020-02-18T11:40:55","date_gmt":"2020-02-18T10:40:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/tneeya-and-the-language-of-afrobeats\/"},"modified":"2020-05-16T14:11:19","modified_gmt":"2020-05-16T13:11:19","slug":"tneeya-and-the-language-of-afrobeats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/tneeya-and-the-language-of-afrobeats\/","title":{"rendered":"T\u2019Neeya and the language of afrobeats"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4 class=\"pam-featured-content\" ><b class=\"pam-featured-content\" ><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-37051 pam-featured-content\"  src=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/c0ad79a2-tneeya.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"748\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/c0ad79a2-tneeya.jpeg 866w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/c0ad79a2-tneeya-759x473.jpeg 759w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/c0ad79a2-tneeya-661x412.jpeg 661w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/c0ad79a2-tneeya-465x290.jpeg 465w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/c0ad79a2-tneeya-375x234.jpeg 375w\" sizes=\"(min-width:1010px) 759px,100vw\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/b><\/h4>\n<h4><span style=\"color: #f2994a;\">Born in Douala, based in Ghana T&#8217;Neeya is one of the rising stars of afrobeats. In French, Pidgin, English or German, the polyglot artist reaches audiences across borders. Interview.<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With West-African artists rising on huge scales, afrobeats has hardly ever crossed this many boarders in Africa and the world. The genre has become international and some artists have perfectly understood where to stand in this massive and global diffusion. T\u2019Neeya is one of them. The singer has been putting out her elegant and swingy music for two years and draws her uniqueness from the different languages she sings in. In the majority of her tracks, like her recent big single \u201cJoli\u201d, she blends French, English and Pidgin. German and Cameroonian, based in Accra with the Nigerian Aristokrat label, her music knows how to speak to a diverse public and her popularity is growing fast. PAM met her in her studios in Labone (Accra) for an interview in authentic Frenglish.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br style=\"clear: both;\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/We_bdX9Iamg\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #f2994a;\">You sing in English, French and Pidgin. What led to that in your personal journey?<\/span><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My mom is German and my dad is Cameroonian. I was born in Douala.\u00a0 In the house with my parents we used to speak German and outside with my friends we spoke French. But I also went to a catholic boarding school in Bamenda, in the anglophone territory. So that\u2019s how I was always able to juggle English, French, Pidgin and German. It really influenced how I communicate with people: if I can\u2019t find a word in English, I will just switch to French or German. Then came the singing. The more and more I\u2019m in the business, I\u2019m growing a passion for communicating with the people through my music. People say that music is the universal language. When I sing or write songs, it\u2019s very natural, so I use the different languages I know. I also have francophones fans, anglophone fans or German fans so it brings me a lot of joy that all these different fanbases can sing my lyrics and understand it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #f2994a;\"><br \/>\nIn France, in certain pop scenes, bilingual songs or albums often don\u2019t work for the indigenous fanbase. In your case, it actually brings different fanbases together. How do you explain that? <\/span><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cameroun is a bilingual country! Where I come from, it\u2019s just normal. Growing up, it\u2019s normal to speak English and French and I was never told to use just one language or the other. When I go to the market to buy tomatoes, I can speak French, English or Pidgin and that\u2019s the beauty of Cameroun. Even the national televisions are bilingual and everybody watches everything. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-37052\" src=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/fecb03b5-tneeya.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/fecb03b5-tneeya.jpeg 700w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/fecb03b5-tneeya-100x100.jpeg 100w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/fecb03b5-tneeya-661x661.jpeg 661w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/fecb03b5-tneeya-465x465.jpeg 465w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/fecb03b5-tneeya-375x375.jpeg 375w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/fecb03b5-tneeya-200x200.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/fecb03b5-tneeya-85x85.jpeg 85w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/fecb03b5-tneeya-73x73.jpeg 73w\" sizes=\"(min-width:1010px) 759px,100vw\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #f2994a;\">When did you realize that you wanted to sing professionally?<\/span><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music was always a part of me. When I made the decision to really go for it was when I saw that it was actually possible. I wrote a song for DJ Sara Castro from Panama: she just gave me her vision and we went to the studio. A couple of weeks later, she was like \u201cT\u2019Neeya, we need you to come to Panama right now, we are shooting the video!\u201d So, I went to Panama! It was just crazy to realize that it was possible. That\u2019s also why I\u2019m very passionate about showing the young people that it is possible. In Africa, people are losing hope, we don\u2019t believe. We have to help the young kids dream! I spoke to my dad and he told me \u201cjust do it and finish it\u201d. From this moment, I stopped introducing myself through the fashion studies I used to pursue in Germany. My name is T\u2019Neeya and I am an artist.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br style=\"clear: both;\" \/><\/span><span style=\"color: #f2994a;\">Out of all the country you could have stayed in, why did you choose Ghana to do your music?\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I was curious. I went to Paris, London, Berlin, Panama, the United States, but I really wanted to know more about Africa. At that time, it was Lagos or Accra, I didn\u2019t want to go back to Cameroun where I spent most of my life. I chose Ghana because the people around me at the time knew people there. I was literally jumping in cold water. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made. I had to work very hard to prove myself and get respect from the people in the industry, but we\u2019ve done pretty well in 2 years: this is the first time I don\u2019t have to chase people as much to play my song on the radio. Accra is also a very good place to create and to connect with people. I miss home, but choosing Africa was definitely a good choice and it is my present and my future. My fanbase is also growing a lot in Africa: Cameroun, Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya, Ghana\u2026 Let\u2019s see in a year!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #f2994a;\"><br \/>\nHow do you the see the future?<\/span><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My future is so bright! It took me a long time to say this and I mean it in a humble way. It\u2019s a really tough business for a woman and it\u2019s really tough to leave Europe for a new African country. Sometimes you ask yourself a million questions. But right now, I feel like the doors are really opening and people respect what me and my team do. I can only hope for bigger and better. 2019 is ending with my single \u201cJoli\u201d that is doing really well at the moment. In 2020, I\u2019m definitely putting out a project!<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br style=\"clear: both;\" \/><\/span><br \/>\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JI88_Ujf0-Q\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Born in Douala, based in Ghana T&#8217;Neeya is one of the rising stars of afrobeats. In French, Pidgin, English or German, the polyglot artist reaches audiences across borders. Interview. With West-African artists rising on huge [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":37051,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11036,7835,9405],"tags":[],"location":[7994],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40934"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40934"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=40934"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=40934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}