KENYA:"I Won't Fight for Punks" - An Angry Octopizzo Calls Out Kenyan Artists For Not Being Active in Royalties Fight
25 January 2016
On Friday the ‘royalties fight’ which has been the main agenda in the music industry in the last two weeks since Elani spoke out, got a platform on ‘The Trend’ show.
The Trend brought many of Kenya’s top artists and top officials of MCSK, PRSK and KAMP to finally iron out the issue.
But one person undoubtedly stole the show. Rapper Octopizzo took a firm stand saying he would not support any artists or any of the copyright bodies in the matter.
Speaking on the matter he said, “They’ve (the copyright bodies) have not done their jobs as people expect and artists have not done their jobs too.”
“Just because I’ve done three hit songs doesn’t mean I deserve 1 million…On the other hand someone is getting 1 million in royalties and they have no songs for the last 3 years and I’ve been making hit songs the whole year. It doesn’t make sense,” he added.
He went on to make the shocking revelation that in 2014 which is undoubtedly one of his best years since he joined the music industry, he only made Sh.3,000.
Speaking about Elani’s complaints he said, “My first cheque was 3k, they got 31k…I got the logs, I did the same thing they did and there were a lot of questions…When some songs get airplay they make 7/- or 8/- and others 30 bob.”
“I don’t understand when a song is released as a group or as a solo artist, is there something that determines that as a group you make more money than as a solo artist,” he added.
However he took a turn to also rebuke some of the artists that complain about royalties and yet do not attend meeting when called to do so.
“When meetings are called for artists I never see these guys…90 percent don’t come, they only come when there’s an allowance.”
Shockingly he also defended the CEO of MCSK saying he was not to blame for failure in the lower departments.
“We can’t blame the CEO, he doesn’t pick logs. We blame the person who gets the logs,” he said.
Octo then went on to say that all the artists should join the fight and not fight passively on social media. He calls such artists ‘punks’ and says he will not fight for them.
Check out the full video for more;
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