Libianca in an interview with BBC, explains how her hit song titled PEOPLE saved and changed her life. Since its release on December 06, 2022, the song PEOPLE has been making waves across the globe, breaking records and topping the UK’s Afrobeats charts. The song will potentially become the first Cameroonian song to enter the official Top 10 this coming Friday. Since the release of the song in December, it has hit a record-breaking of more than 150 million streams just in less than 100 days. PEOPLE is number three in India, number five in New Zealand, and number one in Nigeria.
In an interview with BCC, she(Libianca) explains how she has been experiencing a rare mood disorder called cyclothymia, which causes emotional ups and downs that are similar to bipolar disorder, but less extreme than bipolar.
Libianca literally wrote the song PEOPLE last November after she throw a thanksgiving party, and while her friends were celebrating, she spent much of the night crying in the bathroom. No one noticed her eyes were swollen and red when she came downstairs, and no one cared to ask what was wrong with her but they simply offered her alcohol to drink.
In her frustration, and because she needed help and help seemed to be far-fetched for her, she decided to go to a studio where she could pour out her anger. She explains how she always feels good whenever she does something productive that helps her. So the studio for Libianca was finding solace.
Libianca went further to explain that, she didn’t expect her song to be this successful as she only wrote the song because she was going through a lot and the only way she could feel better was to transmit her worries through her lyrics. She says whenever she was consuming tequila and Ouzo with wine chasers, she felt better so why would she not drink more? so one day she said to herself, she can’t keep doing this and she can’t continue waking up every day hungover.
The song People has become a wake-up call for people to always check on their friends and loved ones despite the fact that, whenever you ask anyone how are you, the automatic response is that they are fine meanwhile they might be going through a lot behind the scenes. Libianca explained that recalls during the COVID-19 pandemic, she felt a lot of people became more isolated, and no matter what they are going through, if you ask them, “how are you doing?”, the first thing they are going to say is, “I am fine” which she discovered it was an automatic response. She believes her song PEOPLE is breaking that spell and helping people to be more vulnerable and say, ‘I’m not doing well. I really need a hug from you right now.
Read Libianca in her own words explains the life experiences that led her to become successful with her hit song PEOPLE and how some of her fans express their gratitude for the song as it has helped them through tough times.
“My whole life changed in a matter of hours, I woke up in the morning and things had just flipped over. I’d been at a low point in 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, overthinking, really anxious – a bunch of things going on in my head. I felt like I was drowning in it and nobody could see me and I just needed some help. So I decided, you know what? Let me just go in the studio, because I feel better whenever I’ve done something productive. That helps me. I wasn’t expecting people to come out. It’s just how I was feeling. I couldn’t write about anything else. This song has been my best friend whenever I was drunk, I didn’t feel sad, so why not just drink some more? Clearly, after a few days, I was like, I can’t keep going like this. I can’t keep waking up every morning hung over. After Covid, I feel like a lot of people became isolated. And no matter what anybody is going through, if you ask them, ‘How are you doing?’, the first thing they’re going to say is, ‘I’m fine’. It’s an automatic response. And I think what PEOPLE is doing is breaking that [spell] and helping people to be more vulnerable and say, ‘I’m not doing well. I really need a hug from you right now”.
Reactions from some of her fans:
“As I’m going through my fourth panic attack of the day… This song just makes me feel like I am not the only one.”
“This song has been my best friend for the past few weeks, as it has been my comforter after losing my child”, wrote another
Libianca’s reactions to the comments:
“I couldn’t be more proud,” says Libianca, “because it’s really helping people get the support they need. And it helped me as well because my friends didn’t know that’s how I was feeling when I recorded that song.”
Early life:
Born Libianca Kenzonkinboum Fonji in St Paul, Minnesota, USA. She returned to her native land Cameroon at the age of four because her mother was going through some immigration problems, and was facing deportation. So she had to leave with her to Cameroon before she could be deported. They settled in Bamenda, the Northwest region of the country where she started singing at the age of six. She will always excise her vocals in churches, and then in the boarding school she attended in Bamenda
Libianca Later moved back to Minnesota with her family when was a teenager at the age of fourteen (14). She loved music so much and was aspiring to become an artist someday but her parents were not supportive of her dreams of becoming a musician but instead encouraged her to study medicine and become a registered nurse. She explains how she totally understood her parent’s worries. She says:
“I can’t blame them,” she laughs. “Parents work so hard to come to this country and give us opportunities, and music is a big risk.”
Libianca’s mother later understood that she could do music and still pursue her carrier in nursing. So she paid for her voice lessons and guitar tuition, while her father acted as her manager. Libianca was so happy and satisfied so much so that she decided to make her parents happy by taking a number of jobs. She explains her worst experience in one of the jobs she took in a nursing home where she was accidentally pushed in a pool while taking residents out for a swim and she almost drowned. Luckily for her, somebody saw her and jumped into the pool and saved her.
In 2021, Libianca appeared in The Voice USA a multinational talent show where her vocal abilities impressed all coaches, especially the legendary Soul singer John Legend. She progressed to the live shows and lost. After her elimination, she said to BBC world service, “I’m a very competitive person, I don’t like to lose. So when I got eliminated, I was like, ‘I was doing so good on this show and I didn’t win? Are you serious! Something’s wrong!'”. She also admitted that the show taught her a lot
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