During bikutsi, women dance and sing along with the balafon, and lyrics focus on relationships, sexuality and the lives of famous people.

The most popular performer of this period was Messi Me Nkonda Martin, frontman for Los Camaroes and known as "the father of modern bikutsi music".

The late guitarist of Les Têtes Brulées, Zanzibar, invented the trick of damping the strings of his guitar with a strip of foam rubber to produce the music's characteristic balafon-like thunk.

Present-day bikutsi as performed by artists like Lady Ponce, K-Tino, Racine Sagath and Natascha Bizo is sometimes regarded as controversial.

The main difference is that present day bikutsi is still often performed by female artists who use it as a means of self-expression in a traditionally male-dominated society.

Thus a singer like K-Tino, self-styled femme du peuple (woman of the people) sees herself as having an important part to play in the emancipation and liberation of the women of Cameroon.

Among the current crop of artists are Patou Bass and Ovasho Bens, the promoter of a dance and philosophy called "zig zag".