Valsero has opted to speak out. In Cameroon, a country where people generally suffer in silence for fear of retribution or keep quiet at a price, the gravel-voiced rapper with his blistering looks is something of a meteorite. As a result, his dreaded tracks aren’t broadcast on state radio or TV, and his concerts are regularly banned by the authorities or interrupted by the police.

As for Valsero, he "feels living, real" when he speaks out. And he describes Cameroon to perfection with its nepotistic regime, corruption, leaders’ embezzlement of state funds, the power and resources confiscated by a handful of sixty- and seventy-year-olds, and the distress of an unemployed youth. "This country is killing young people, the old won’t let go (…) / Fifty years of power and still they won’t let go / Young people are dying off / While the old people holding the fort get drunk on fire water / This country is like a bomb and a tomb for the young," he chants in his first album Politikement instable, which came out in 2008

Valsero, whose real name is Serval Gaston Abe, "hits home" because he knows what he’s talking about. Like most young Cameroonians, who make up over half the population, he found himself out of work with no future in view when his studies at the Ecole des postes et télécommunications ended in 2002. He started to write in anger. "In the early 90s, I used to listen to rap for pleasure. And then later I tasted real life and real problems, and the dejection of being out of work. I started to understand what the rappers were talking about. I wanted to say something too," he explains.

In Lettre au président, his best-known number, the singer so admired for his bravery talks directly to the head of state, 77-year-old Paul Biya, who has been in power for 28 years. "Presi, your mates live out in the village as if they’re passing through / They make their fortunes, specialising in plundering / They show their arrogance, they cheat the people / They walk all over the rules and do what they like / Oh presi, stop them, that’s your work / Or inch’allah, I swear: someone else’ll do it for you," he sings.

His contemporaries share his rage. In August 2009, in Yaoundé, twenty young people were arrested by police when at one of his concerts they ripped up a giant poster of Paul Biya that had been stuck on the wall for a previous event. At the end of 2009, Valsero continued with his single Répond!, once more targeting the president, who few dare to criticise in public. "Presi (…), I sent you a letter telling you Cameroonian young people’s complaints, but time goes by, father, and still no reply (…) / We just want to live better and feel better, don’t ignore us (…) /Don’t transform lambs and sheep into wolves and lions / Young people who choose to rebel can hurt, / Answer us (….) / What are your politics anyway?"

"It’s time to act and stop writing books. We need to attack specific issues in a clear-cut way," says Valsero. One of the things he does is run a campaign demanding better transport conditions in trains from Youandé to the north of the country. The trains are owned by the French industrialist, Vincent Bolloré. "Let’s act together to change the situation," read the tracts that he and his colleagues distribute. He wants to prove that "we exist and we can control our lives".

None of this has stopped him rapping. Autopsie, his next, self-produced album, comes out in July. His line of fire is the 2011 presidential election in which Paul Biya may well once more be a candidate: in 2008, he abolished the limit on the number of presidential mandates, despite a large protest movement. With these new lyrics, Valsero wants to make young people understand that they need to get interested in politics and vote.

"Right now, they’re not motivated. They’d rather drink a beer than go and sign up on an electoral register. But they need to be shown that it’s up to them to get Cameroon out of the shit it’s in. Just saying ‘it’s not our fault’ won’t solve the problem," he goes on. "The vote probably hasn’t shown its effectiveness in Cameroon, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be effective any more. We need to vote en masse, show an interest in the results and react. Only massive participation can legitimise protest."