Artist Spotlight: Libianca Forji

It was a sunny afternoon in December, I was in the car with my childhood friend driving home, catching up on life and all when the hit song “People” by Libianca started playing from his queue of songs. The hook caught my attention so fast that I quickly “shazamed” the song and fell in love with it immediately. I had been drinking more alcohol that period (I had a small container of one right with me at that moment) while mourning a close relative who passed.

Further interested in knowing how this artiste has been able to connect my emotions and state of mind in one song, I checked out her profile. I feel more connected to “broken” artists (please don’t ask me why). 

Libianca Kenzonkinboum Fonji, popularly known as Libianca, is a 22-year-old Cameroonian American R&B/AfroSoul Singer/Songwriter. She competed in the 2021 season of the American TV show, The Voice and was eliminated in the top 20. She continued her singing career afterward. Libianca is currently signed on to 5K Records and RCA Records.

Libianca has a peculiar style of delivery, which is a mix of R&B/Soul elements and Afrobeats. This shows in her older releases like ‘Special lovin’(2021) and ‘Woman’ (2022) where she speaks on her sultry desires and the need to receive love and attention respectively. Her delivery on ‘My Place’ reminds me a lot about April Maey’s ‘All that energy’. She has also released other songs like ‘Thank you’, an appreciation to her family for being her backbone and support in all seasons. However, her cover of Billie Eilish’s ‘Everything I wanted’ is quite different from all her other releases. This shows how much practice and years of experience she’s had in vocal training and delivery. 

The Spotlight finally shines on Libianca with the release of “People”.

She is best known for her breakout single “People”, inspired by her mood disorder, cyclothymia. Libianca explains the circumstances that led to her recording the song in her interview with Rolling Stone.

She also expressed that she didn’t expect the song to gain that much attention after she released it. The song debuted at No. 2 on the US Billboard Afrobeats chart and received traction on social media. It currently has over 90 million streams on Spotify, while the official music video on YouTube has over 23M views.

Not only did the song gain traction across social media platforms thereby amassing several views and usage in content creation, but several artists also jumped on the trend and created their own covers of the hit song. Bnxn’s cover stands out for me.

Libianca performing “People” on Glitch Africa is my favorite video at the moment. She has a powerfully emotional delivery alongside her beautiful vocals. 

On the 2nd of March 2023, she announced that she will be releasing the remix of “People” featuring Omah Lay and Ayra Starr. This is a perfect feature, especially with Omah Lay who’s been in his sad boy era since he released Boy Alone. Still maintaining the same beat and tempo, Ayra Starr and Omah Lay delivered beautifully on the highly anticipated remix of the hit song, “People”.

Listen to People remix here- People – Remix (lnk.to)

For more music updates, stay glued to Soot Africa