Q: Tell me where you’re from and a little about you.
A: Well it is sometime difficult to talk about ourselves and this pretty much applies to me too. But to answer your questions; I am a Canadian of nationality born Chris-Landry Maneng’s in Douala, popularly known as Chrislan Treasure. I come from a family of four where I unfortunately was the only man surrounded by three sisters who didn’t stop treating me as a girl until I was old enough to be in high school. Beside that, they always had lots of love and respect towards me.
I left my family nest when I was about 12 years old and that made me take on responsibilities very early and grow up very fast. When kids of my age were thinking about going swimming (by the way I can’t swim) or to the movies, I was on the other hand thinking on how to pay my bills. Well many may ask where my parents were by the time I was struggling to make ends meet. My youth was a perpetual struggle to understand why my fathers’ family didn’t like my mom and why did it become an issue that had to roll down to innocent kids? Nevertheless, this hard childhood help me work harder than other kids to achieve greatness, which was the gold I thought could be the only answer I could give to my dad’s family.
At 17 years of age I released a single which changed my financial status and opened many doors. I was later signed by a record label where I met incredible industry veterans and started building myself a name in the entertainment industry. At 19yrs, I started using my love for writing to help in creating TV contents for Networks, started realizing my fashion dream by consulting for giant fashion companies like Elite and during my early 20s, I started investing in companies not knowing that was the birth of “the business man”.
Q: Who has been the biggest inspiration in your life?
A: As a soul singer who started as a performer, I was musically influenced by great artists such as James Brown, Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson. This was just musically though, as my gold for greatness wanted me to become someone like Steve Stoute whom I looked up to in all forms. I always admired how he rose to become a well respected Music Executive. I always thought that once an artist get a record deal, he is guaranteed success so I couldn’t understand why after signing my record deal I was still struggling to get my name out there. But after seeing the way Steve Stoute handled celebrity marketing, I realized there was a bigger piece I needed, and had to learn about.
Q: At what age did you start singing?
A: I first started as a performer when I was about 9 years old. Back then I was performing Michael Jackson’ songs and choreography with my childhood friends. But this changed in to singing at my 13th year when I decided to become a singer to impress a girl.
Q: How did you get your start as an artist?
A: Many singers today will tell you they felt they had the talent to sing at their young age probably via the choir in church, or at school or maybe while singing at home. Well my experience was very different from all that. Before I tell you how I started and what age I had back then, I will first like to apologize to you and your readers because I am not particularly proud of it. Okay! Let’s get it over with; it was my second year in middle school, I had left