"Our love is validated, for me baby you are my number one...", the crowd sways as they take up the lyrics of their title "Validé" with hip-hop and afro-beat sounds, the result of a collaboration with the Cameroonian singer Petit Pays.

With more than 4,500 followers on Instagram, this 27-year-old singer and influencer, better known as "Cool Fawa" or "cool girl", is among the most followed artists on social networks in the Central African Republic, torn by a civil war for nine years.

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"I love his music, it gives me hope to succeed one day," says a 16-year-old girl attending the concert.

“Cool Fawa, she rocks,” exclaims a young man.

Singing mainly in French, with touches of Sango and English, his best-known title, "On va se marier", released in 2018, has more than 50,000 views on Youtube.

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Benefiting from a certain notoriety among young people, his music essentially addresses the themes of love and male-female relationships on a "zouk-love" rhythm because "it sells", explains Cool Fawa.

"I was a fan of Diam's"

Selling more than rap, her first love, in which she launched herself in 2010. An environment devoid of women.

"I was a fan of Diam's, the French rapper," she confesses childishly.

Determined to rap like her role model, she joined a group made up exclusively of men, a civil servant MC: "At first they didn't take me seriously, but they ended up accepting me".

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Together, he made "revolutionary rap", denouncing through committed texts the problems of societies "such as the lack of roads, infrastructure, means..."

An early career turned upside down in 2013 by the civil war where the rebels of the Seleka, mainly Muslims, stormed the capital Bangui chasing President François Bozizé, in power for ten years.

The country is sinking into a security and political crisis opposing mainly Christian and animist militias, the anti-balaka, to the Seleka.

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In the midst of a crisis, Princia stops everything.

"We couldn't go out anymore, we were afraid of taking a bullet or being kidnapped," she confides in the privacy of her house on the heights of Bangui.

Rap, "it's dangerous, it doesn't pay off, and it's bad for my image," she laments, rolling her eyes.

"My music was frowned upon by the population. There are parents who no longer wanted their daughter to approach me", annoys Cool Fawa.

A prejudice that does not spare those close to her: "The people around me always comment on what my daughter is doing, laments her mother, Cécile Yohoram, an English teacher in high school. But as soon as I hear her sing, I feel proud."

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"For most Central Africans, rap is a music of failures", regrets Princia.

From rap to afro-beat

Refusing to be reduced to silence, Cool Fawa swaps rap for hip-hop and afro-beat music, which is more popular but not necessarily profitable like the whole of the Central African cultural sector.

"The Ministry of Arts and Culture helped me in 2020 but I would like to feel more supported by my government", regrets the main patron musician of her career.

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Being a woman in this environment also means being confronted with sexist behavior, particularly when it comes to finding funding.

"The sponsors are too often in a relationship of seduction", laments the artist.

"I quickly understood that I had to finance my music myself".

Coming from a modest background, Princia can count on the financial support of her relatives in addition to her small business that she manages with her sister.

"We buy wigs, shoes, bags ... abroad to resell them here, it allows me to pay for the registration of my titles in Cameroon."

Besides this activity, Cool Fawa earns his living thanks to his concerts, but not yet with the viewing of his clips broadcast on YouTube suffering from the lack of internet access of the population.

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In this country, the second least developed in the world, only 10% of the 5 million inhabitants have access to the internet, according to the World Bank.

Despite the difficulties, Cool Fawa does not lose sight of his goal: to release his first album and "become a super star".

© 2022 AFP