Royalty woes: Shatta Wale calls on musicians to expedite actions in bringing GHAMRO into account
Royalty woes: Shatta Wale calls on musicians to expedite actions in bringing GHAMRO into account
Reggae/Dancehall artiste, Shatta Wale has joined hundreds of industrial players who have bared their teeth at Ghana Music Rights Organisation (GHAMRO) for failure to recognise musicians with their due royalty payments.
GHAMRO is an organisation sets aside to monitor systems in tracking how songs by Ghanaian musicians are used on radio, television, and digital platforms to collect and distribute royalties to deserving musicians.
However, many musicians have denied receiving such royalty with those receiving them were also lamenting on how little the amount was.
Charles Nii Armah Mensah, as privately known has charged musicians in Ghana to embark on an action that would put GHAMRO on track.
His call comes after the former Chairman of GHAMRO, Rex Omar, revealed in a media interview that Shatta Wale was the highest royalty earner in the country for the year 2021.
According to him, the musician had over GH¢30,000 in royalties and was the highest amount of money GHAMRO had given out in its history.
However, the “1 Don” hitmaker described the amount as little, comparing how his songs were used on many platforms over the years, and charged musicians to sit up to ensure GHAMRO accounts properly to musicians.
“30k is an insult to my entire music career but this one as usual Ghanaian artistes will sit down and won’t voice out,” he lamented in a tweet.
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“No wonder they will pay me 30k and you will think it is big money but my brother, my sister think about it deeply. Imagine we register with these people as a force and go on demonstration #NoRoyaltyNoMusic like by now these 400 radio stations will be monetised. Imagine the money, not only radio stations but pubs, hotels, clubs etc will be monetised and I believe government will even support,” Shatta Wale said this in a different tweet.
Recently, A Plus also expressed his dissatisfaction about the amount of royalty given to legendary highlife singer, Daddy Lumba.
He regretted that Daddy Lumba received GH¢150 as royalty payments and called on GHAMRO to expedite actions by creating necessary monitoring platforms and putting in place appropriate measures to ensure Ghanaian artiste did not bow out of their music career as poor.
Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GHAMRO, Mr Abraham Adjatey, has said GHAMRO had signed an agreement with various music monitoring platforms and royalty collection organisations including Global Music Monitoring and Capasso respectively to monitor music throughout the country while also collecting digital royalties for artistes and right owners.
This, he said was part of his outfit’s efforts to go digital and see creators earn their due from their works.
Mr Adjatey explained that the deal would ensure that the digital rights licensing company provided monitoring systems to help track songs of Ghanaian right owners on digital platforms.
