SINGING FOR GOD OR FOR THE WORLD? A SPIRITUAL, AND PHILOSOPHICO-ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE ON THE REINVENTION OF THE CAMEROON GOSPEL SCENE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29121/shodhshreejan.v3.i2.2026.78Keywords:
Gospel Music, Postmodern Aesthetics, Secularism, Cultural Economics, Pseudo Christian MusicAbstract [English]
Over the last decades, Cameroonian secular artistes have, in their numbers, transitioned to gospel music. For many Christian communities, this development is doubly beneficial to their religion: it points to the attractiveness of Christianity and the possible diversification of the gospel music industry in their country. Although not totally false, this reading of the situation loses sight of the complexity of the motives behind secular artistes’ conversion as well as the consequences of the massive spiritualo-artistic transitions. Using critical observations and literary sources, this descriptive paper examines the aforementioned motives. The paper specifically explores Cameroon secular artistes’ conversion to gospel in the light of three theories namely cultural economics, postmodernism and secularism. It argues that these cases of conversion to gospel are driven by a variety of motives that paradoxically also include business profit, postmodern Christian thinking and the desecration of gospel music. Additionally, the paper contends that the artistes’ conversion unexpectedly leads to very ambivalent consequences: on one hand, it enables aesthetic revolution in the sub-genre and on the other, paradoxically facilitates further secularization the country’s gospel music industry.
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