The shocking reveal of the Black Entertainment Television Awards, popularly known as the BET awards, for the category of Viewers’ Choice Best International New Act award, has continuously made a loud buzz all over the internet.
In the blink of an eye, one could easily pick out the possible winner of the BET Viewers’ Choice Best International New Act award as the nominees list contained some of the currently most global trending artists, Including, Werenoi, Camidoh, Pabi Cooper, Libianca, Raye, Flo, MC Ryan and Nigerian’s great singer and songwriter, Ahmed Ololade, popularly called Asake who has been topping national and international musical charts in recent times, from one hit song to another, months after months. Many would agree that his nomination for the BET awards was a great stepping stone in his music career as his global recognition journey only just started about eight months ago after the release of his debut album Mr. Money With The Vibe in 2022 which made groundbreaking records across the world, So as much as his fans didn’t see his nomination coming, it also was not much of a surprise for a lot.
However, there can never be a more shocking moment for the crowd than at the 23rd BET award ceremony, which took place on June 25th, 2023. Libianca Kenzonkinboum Fonji, widely known as ‘Libianca’ was declared the BET Viewers’ Choice Best International New Act. The whole public went agog. Libianca delivered the trending song “People” (check on me), a masterpiece which triumphed over Asake (Mr. Money), Werenoi, Camidoh, Pabi Cooper, Raye, Flo, MC Ryan at the BET 2023 for the category of “Viewers’ Choice Best International New Act awards”.
This announcement posed to be one of the most engaging news in the history of BET awards as it has had millions of entertainment fans screaming in disbelief, some in excitement, and others in a state of dilemma, considering if it was an unfair or well-deserved win.
The Cameroonian-American Afrobeats singer, Libianca, has been in the music industry as a singer and songwriter since as far as 2021, when she was spotted as a contestant on the twenty-first season of NBC’s The Voice with Blake Shelton as her coach who she had chosen over John Legend, Kelly Clarkson and Ariana Grande.
She recently gained a wider range of international recognition after the release of her debut single “People” which is said to have been inspired by cyclothymia and gave her the career breakthrough she needed as it made its way up to No. 1 in the UK Afrobeats chart, No. 2 on the US Billboard Afrobeat chart, No. 2 in UK Official chart and top chart on many other recognized platforms. Let us not forget its notorious buzz on TikTok and every other social media platform you can think of and now won its way up to BET Viewers’ Choice Best International New Act awards.
Libianca, became the first-ever Cameroon music artist to get nominated for a BET award and the first Cameroonian music artist to win a BET Viewers’ Choice Best International New Act award. This takes the Cameroon music industry to a whole new level of global recognition in world music and entertainment industry. It’s safe to say that Libianca is a force that is currently driving the Cameroonian music industry to the spotlight among other artists.
According to BBC, Libianca wrote the song in November last year, after she had thrown a Thanksgiving party where she « felt invisible ».
« I’d been at a low point of my life for at least two weeks and I was just like, ‘I can’t take any more of this, There were self-harmful thoughts, over-thinking, really anxious – a bunch of things going on in my head, » she explains over the phone from Paris.
She also told Brooke Bailey during an interview that the inspiration for her song “People” had come from a place of depression as she explained her journey to achieving a groundbreaking song.
– “The inspiration came from my depression. What I was going through at the time was, you know, it was just a very low, low moment. I wasn’t feeling, you know, inspired to do anything really. Just wanted to stay in bed, cry my eyes out, shut the world out, isolate, I knew that writing or just going into this studio would make me feel better. The night after I posted the song on TikTok. I woke up, my manager, he’s my best friend too, but Metro wakes me up in the morning and he’s like, “You have to see this. You have to see this man. You have to see.” I’m like, “What’s going on?” I’m not a morning person, I wake up and we see videos being done to the sound already and it’s already at 80K “Ah, wow.” it’s like plus 10,000 followers, you refresh it plus another 10K is like, “Okay.” And I just froze. I mean, I didn’t know what to do.”
One would notice the genuine surprise on her face as she was announced the winner and presented the award. Since the BET award, fans all over the world have been encouraged and inspired to “build beauty out of messes”, a Libianca fan explained that this means to take advantage of your worse moments by channeling all that hurt, grief, sadness, loneliness, disappointment or whatever the feeling maybe, channel it into something productive.