Jonathan Mbiriyamveka Entertainment Reporter
The National Arts Council of Zimbabwe has failed to act on a copyright case involving Mukudzei Mukombe who is being accused of stealing a song called “Samini” by a Ghanaian pop star Emmanuel Samini.
Mukombe, popularly known as Jah Prayzah, sampled “Samini” to record his version called “Mwanasikana” which won a National Arts Merit Award organised by the NACZ last year.
However, the NACZ which is the arts regulatory body has been blamed for its ineptitude and indecisiveness in clamping down on copyright theft.
On one hand, Jah Prayzah was supposed to surrender the award but he did not while on the other hand, the NACZ gave flimsy excuses for not acting saying they were yet to receive a formal report.
This was despite the alarm raised on social media and in the Press calling on the NACZ to deal with the issue once and for all.
“As National Arts Council of Zimbabwe there is no formal report that we have received of the alleged plagiarism by Mukudzei Mukombe (Jah Prayzah).
“We have been reading the allegations on social media and newspapers and as NACZ we act upon issues that are brought to our attention formally,” Catherine Mthombeni the NACZ communications and marketing officer said.
Pressed on why “Mwanasikana” the song at the centre of controversy was given a NAMA, Mthombeni skirted around saying it was the video and not the song.
“Our records indicate that the song ‘Mwanasikana’ was not awarded a National Arts Merit Award; instead the video for the song ‘Mwanasikana’ scooped an Outstanding Music Video award that was given to the video producer Willard Magombedze,” she said.
The NACZ was also ignorant of the fact that Jah Prayzah admitted to stealing the song in an interview with The Herald Entertainment a month ago.
Already, the originator of the song announced late last year that he would pursue legal action against Jah Prayzah for copyright infringement.
Music analyst Professor Fred Zindi said it was important for artistes to credit the originators of music.
“If the originator of the song died say 50 years ago then there is no need to give credit but if the originator is still alive they deserve credit.
“This is because a percentage, maybe two percent, will go directly to the originator of the song. If I record a song by Lionel Richie two percent will go to Lionel Richie and there are organisations throughout the world that deal with these issues. Zimura (Zimbabwe Music Rights Association) should be alerted so and when they know they should act and tell the artiste that part of the royalties will go to the originator,” he said.
In Zimbabwe, there has been rampant plagiarism of music by several artistes.
Names that quickly come to mind include Suluman Chimbetu’s “Kwedu” that sampled the track “Kajituliza Kasuku” by Les Wenyika.
In fact, Suluman did not only steal Les Wenyika’s song but he stole two songs – “Kajituliza Kasuku” and “Kata Kata”, another Swahili song with the same beat. A random check on YouTube will expose copycats.
Then there was Winky D’s “Musarove Bigman” in which he is alleged to have copied Jamaican Vybez Kartel song titled “Unfaithful”. Again, the video is there for all to see on YouTube.
Alick Macheso’s “Mundikumbuke” sampled a track of the same title by Lucias Banda from Malawi and The Thornhill Brothers stole from theme song for a TV series “El Dorado”.
Using samples can be done legally for as long as there is prior agreement with composers, it is only bad when artistes break the rules thinking that no one will know.
In all these cases, there was little or no effort to act on the part of the NACZ.