Cameroonian singer shares her music journey, challenges, love for Nigerian music and more

Cameroonian artist speaks of her connection to Nigeria, says she always believes African countries are one, and if she can be comfortable overseas where she’s half Spanish, then she can make any African country hers. She then says she fell in love with Nigerian music after coming in for shows, and feels Nigeria is the capital of entertainment in Africa.

On how her music journey started, the singer came into limelight through an audition she had in Spain where she was in a group called the Spanish girls, more like a Latino version of the famous Spice girls group and emerged finalist and that’s how she brought the groove of her musical journey back to Africa.

She recalls she was the only black girl in the group and people were racially biased against her. But believes when you believe in yourself, work hard and trust God, you get favoured.

On why she came out on her own as Ashley Stephanie, she had always felt she could do something on her own, that there was a gap missing, and being an African, there was a motivation to go home and just do what she likes.

When asked how it has been breaking into the African music industry, the singer admits that you go through challenges, and that in Africa, you work yourself to a certain level. She says it’s not as easy in treatment as you experience abroad but you understand that you need to adapt in Africa when you know you have a dream and purpose at home, and that there’s room to contribute your own quota to the African music space and make it blossom even more, and that;s what encouraged her.

As a non-Nigerian in the Nigerian music industry, she remembers how she performed at the Calabar festival alongside Awilo Longomba, how they met backstage and how a lady walked in and asked who she was, and was unfriendly to her, saying she shouldn’t be in the room. But she says it only made her work harder and believes if she could have pulled it off in Spain, then she can do same back home in Africa.

On what inspired her song ‘Molo Molo’, she says the song, the first she recorded on coming back, she says she was looking for something from a Hip-hop artist, with a multi-cultural approach that different people can connect to a slang in the Francophone country that has different interpretations.

On her love for Nigerian music, she loves the Nigerian music industry because she believes it is taking over the world gradually. Recalling how she went to a Nigerian club, and it was all Nigerian music, she says the people love their music, and how Latino artist Shakira was curious about the meaning of a Nigerian song in particular. She believes in years to come, Nigerian music will take over the music industry on a global scale.

Watch full interview below.