Frank Noël Makosso knows what it is like to be acknowledged as a stalwart in his chosen field and yet struggle to make a living out of it.
The three-time Gabon champion in slam – a competitive form of performance poetry without props, costumes or music – has also experienced first-hand the challenges that plague artists across Africa.
Think unpaid fees, lack of legal protection, and a general tendency to undervalue creative work.
Makosso’s response was to learn a trade most Gabonese possibly hadn’t heard of: cultural engineering.
Now, through his company Black History Art, he platforms artists based on their unique talents and creates wealth by putting cultural events involving them on a proper business footing.
Learning from scratch
His early years of struggle taught Makosso that creating avenues for artists to monetise their work was as important as creative freedom.
“I decided to learn about the cultural mechanisms of those countries where artists make a living from their art, and where culture is a real lever for economic development,” the dreadlocked slam artist and cultural engineer tells TRT Afrika.
Each time he travelled abroad to perform, Makosso looked for opportunities to learn newer facets about what was becoming his new passion.
"The desire to address a problem guided me towards becoming a cultural engineer," he reminisces.
Innovative expertise
Since no university in Gabon offered a course in cultural engineering, Makosso enrolled for online training with Paris-based Sciences Po as part of a distance education initiative by the French ministry of culture.
But his real education came through practice, combining academic learning with hands-on experimentation in the field.
"I felt the need to create and organise our events," he explains. "I would invite rappers and stars in other creative fields to perform in the same way as other artists. I then launched a multi-disciplinary festival, which is now in its fifth year," says Makosso.
The festival taught him how cultural engineering works. He learnt that organising cultural events through proper business planning and concrete project development was the key to making them creatively successful and financially viable.
As Makosso puts it, the process of organising a cultural event must be "interpreted in the entrepreneurial sense of the term".
Festival to enterprise
Black History Art came into being nearly five years ago when an embassy in Gabon was looking for a professional entity capable of organising an event based on a specific set of specifications.
This matched what Makosso’s team had already been doing through their multi-disciplinary festival. It was the perfect moment when theory meets opportunity.
A diverse team consisting of graphic artists, webmasters, technicians and logisticians, with Makosso handling accounting and strategic planning, formed the core of Black History Art.
"We created a company based on our expertise in the field and answered the call. We were selected. The results of managing this project then led to other contracts, and that's how we decided to invest ourselves fully in this company," he tells TRT Afrika.
From its base in Owendo, 15 kilometres from Libreville, Black History Art has carved out a niche for itself in the Gabonese events market.
"I have evolved through training and organising events concurrently," says Makosso. "The strength of our networks and the diversity of our in-house skills, which halve our costs, create an advantageous business model."
But making money isn't the company’s only goal. Black History Art recognises that elevating the social status of artistic professions requires ongoing training and development. It conducts workshops and seminars across disciplines – from choreography and dance to slam and public speaking.
Building a new model
Art may be as old as civilisation, but it has had to adapt to modern times. Cultural engineering is attracting more Africans, who see its potential for creating wealth through the arts in a systematic way without compromising on creativity.
For Makosso and his team, the primary goal is to tackle the fundamental problems that have always marginalised artists by building structures that provide legal protection, fair pay, and opportunities for professional development.
The job of giving artists more social weight is far from finished. Black History Art showcases how cultural engineering can transform creative talent into genuine economic opportunities.
For a continent rich in artistic talent, Makosso's approach offers a practical model for transforming creativity into sustainable careers and community development.
