In his 20 years in the music industry, Kwaw Kese claims he has never earned any royalties.
The rapper used Twitter to express his frustration with the nation’s music industry, highlighting how challenging it is for artists to gain exposure as the sole funders of their careers.
“20 years of doing music in Ghana and never got paid any royalties. You rather have to pay DJs to play your music, pay tv to show your videos, bloggers to blog your content, and press media to give you press. How can you survive this industry by financing all these by yourself?” he tweeted Thursday, December, 15.
In a subsequent tweet, the creator of Madtime Entertainment contrasted making music in his native nation with doing so “elsewhere,” where his “friend produced one song for a musician and has made over 2 million dollars,” out of that single endeavor.” Down here, you only get paid with insults and disrespect,” he bemoaned. “Release a song today and tomorrow they’ll be asking when are you releasing a new song?”
“Elsewhere somewhere my friend produced one song for a musician and has made over 2 million dollars for producing the song. Down here you only get paid with insults and disrespect,” he added.
He continued; “Release a song today and tomorrow they’ll be asking when are you releasing a new song. Don’t release a song in a year and they’ll say your time pass lol. Release a song and they’ll say it’s not a hit song.”
Kwaw Kese continues, saying that the scenario is the same for his industry colleagues and has left the majority of them “broke.”
“I bet a lot of our musicians are not getting paid but social media pressure, they will smile on social media and cry at home. More are broke,” he added.
Payments made to copyright holders of a song who are members of a collection organization in exchange for the usage of their works are known as music royalties.
For years on end, Ghanaian musicians’ main concern has been the problem of music royalties.
Musicians in the country have a lot of trouble because of the outdated laws and processes controlling intellectual property.
