Neulong Ni Fii officially released in February 2019 is a rich nine-song album; that showcases highly rhythmic folk music from Bafut, Cameroon. Neulong Ni Fii (New Neulong), the track that lends the album its name, succeeds Neulong (the name of Taneulong's previous album. Just like in his previous he album, this album also features another upbeat Mansoh track titled Mansoh Yaweh (The Lord's Mansoh).
Neulong Ni Fii is a purely traditional tune that embodies the 600 year-old culture and tradition of the Bafut people. Mansoh Yaweh is a traditional song composed for Christ in the Mansoh Genre, praising the Lord as King of the World. These two songs along with the 7 other songs in the album showcase the cultural diversity of a people; a diversity and tolerance also captured in the image portrayed on the album cover art with a bird's eye-view of the Palace and 'Takumbeng' hut symbolising a tradition and culture that has been held intact for 600 years; and the imposing Manji Presbyterian Church structure at the far end of the artwork, less than 200 meters from the Bafut Palace, symbolizing over a hundred years of the coming of the Gospel of Jesus Christ into Bafut.
These Legacies are held intact by His Royal Highness Fon Abumbi II, Paramount Fon (Ruler) of the Bafut Fondom for the last 50 years. This album therefore will not be complete without a tribute to HRH Abumbi II. The song Abumbi II Gold, is composed in celebration of fifty years of Fon Abumbi as ruler of the Bafut people.
This album is released in a very difficult period in the English Speaking regions of Cameroon; a period characterized by an armed conflict that has led to the displacement of entire communities; Bafut not excluded. Taneulong is neither a politician nor activist, just an artist with so much love for his culture that he stayed put and has completed production of this album in Bafut, right in the heat of conflict, having to temporarily run from his home and musical studio, sometimes for days, to avoid bullets flying in his neighbourhood. His home, just as other homes in his village, now bares permanent marks of these difficult times - stray bullet marks on walls. The track, Ncho, recorded during these trying times, is an artistic take on the happenings around the artist. A story of a Deserted Land.
Neulong Ni Fii
Authur, Composer, Arrangements - Taneulong
