QX met up with pop duo Major this week and immediately realised these sisters were never just ordinary siblings.
They left Cameroon for Europe in their teens and one, Irene, has gone on to run a vintage fashion label and appeared on TV shows, whilst the other, Elsa, was cast as a Bond girl. They’ve now turned their hand to music and in June, Major released their first single ‘Love Me Boy’, written by song writing legend Pete Kirtley and their new single ‘Romeo’ will be released this month. The music video, like the girls, is a blend of fun, fashion and colour, but they also care about some serious issues in regards to LGBT rights in their birth country. They told QX: “It’s one of those topics that we need to say something about.”
Earlier this year Amnesty International described the conditions that LGBT citizens face in Cameroon as ‘horrid’ and it was only last month that over a hundred anti-gay Cameroonians rallied against a bar they thought was gay-friendly, demanding stricter enforcement of the government’s horrific anti-gay laws.
Irene sounded sad when she told QX that ‘gay men in Cameroon must live life like straight men, so people aren’t aware of their sexuality’ and the girls are actually writing a novel called ‘Brothers in Love’ about a close friend of theirs who had to leave the country to be safe, because of his sexuality.
‘If you are gay you get treated very badly,’ she continues, ‘In July a Cameroonian gay activist, Eric Lembembe, was killed, and a lawyer who acted on behalf of homosexuals, and wasn’t even gay himself, had to emigrate to the US for security reasons.’ Elsa often ‘wonder[s] how gay people can find each other, to find love, in a country where they have no rights.’
Major hope to use their influence and their novel to influence the gay community in Cameroon, making life easier for them in the future.
