Sanzy Viany, artist-musician.
As the coronavirus pandemic hit Cameroon with full force, you were in the process of promoting your new album. How did you experience the closure of the concert halls and the cancellation of your tour?
The artistic world has been turned upside down by the coronavirus. And inevitably, as a singer, therefore a full member of the cultural movement, I have not been spared by the virulence of this pandemic. In all seriousness, I was very saddened. I have an orchestra of seven people, plus an administrative team of two people. We had to continue to provide them with pay. All my collaborators happen to be parents, responsible for families as I myself am. Not to mention the fact that I am my own producer so far and that I evolve without sponsors who support my work… It took me a personal financial investment around the recording of the album until the pressing of the CDs in France which has not been profitable. All of this made the situation difficult.
You have had to adapt and find resources, especially by bouncing on online platforms. Tell us how you organized yourself to present your new product digitally?
Indeed, it was necessary to show strategic deviation and rethink things. If face-to-face concerts were no longer possible, nothing prohibited an online concert. So my team and I looked into the matter. After careful consideration, we decided to open a virtual space, with a view to broadcasting the concert presenting Sanzy Viany’s new and third album live, in the company of his orchestra, without being a source of Covid-19 contamination. .
And a few days later, we made the album available on all download platforms such as Deezer, iTunes, etc. Honestly, I am delighted with the experience, because I was able to give something to my staff. There was no prize, but a jackpot was open for all the lovers of my voice and all those who wanted to support the project. The credo was: “You like Sanzy Viany’s voice… You deposit the amount of your choice to have access to the virtual room or to support the project. So everyone went with their love for me, injecting 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 F, or even more.
A lesson to be learned from the coronavirus is that for culture, as for any other field, we must rely on the Internet in the future …
Obviously! It is impossible to emerge from this tragic episode imposed by the coronavirus without learning from it. Now, I can no longer operate with one and only one option to sell and defend my art. From now on, I’m going to think about face-to-face concerts, at the same time online shows. This way, even in Papua, my fans will be able to taste my voice and melodies inspired by the Holy Spirit, to comfort their hearts and bring joy to their souls. I think that all artists, whether they are musicians, filmmakers, visual artists, dancers, no matter what artistic field they are in, need to hone their performance online. This pandemic has shown us all that it is impossible to live without art.
Music, cinema, theater, painting, reading, etc. allowed all of these confined humans around the world to hold out. So there was an awareness as much for the artists as for all people exposed to our artistic work. And this awareness has been digital. For my part, I am convinced that the artistic world will rely on the virtual world from now on, because the latter has held hands well with artists in this difficult period. Financially, it is possible for an artist to exist by putting his work online. I have experienced it personally. We should all try to adapt, to accept the application of social distancing to our shows, not to easily spot the emotions of the spectators on their faces hidden by masks, among others. But we are going to survive, because that is the artist, he fights for his art, he creates, he reconstructs, he simply reinvents himself.
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