I
wasn’t particularly surprised that Celebrate didn’t make Burna Boy’s
album as I was told it was owned by producer Gospel. But I was surprised
when the video was taken off YouTube barely 3 hours after it premiered
on your FAVOURITE website, 36NG.
HipHipWorld Magazine’s been able to table out the matter on what exactly happened. Here’s how they are reporting it…
———–
The
issue of copyright ownership of a material is it a script, a song, a
beat, a verse line, a concept, a dance step, has been a major challenge
in the entertainment industry especially the music industry everywhere
in the world. To be honest, it is even worst here in Nigeria since there
are no strict laws protecting intellectual property, discovery and
development.
GospelOnDeBeatz
made major headlines few days back on the recently released video of
the song “Celebrate” featuring our Burna Boy. Sure, if you’re a Burna
Boy follower, you will know that this guy has got everything going for
him musically. GospelOnDeBeatz is an ace-producer based in the Federal
Capital City, Abuja who has worked with a lot budding musicians most
notably ‘All of you’ for Davido.
In
June of 2013, a song was released on the internet with the tag; ‘BURNA
BOY – CELEBRATE [produced by GOSPEL ONDEBEAT]‘…fans of Burna boy were
excited. When Burna Boy’s LIFE album came out, the song was
conspicuously missing. Unknowingly, the song actually belonged to
producer; Gospel.
On
the 11th of September, the video to the song ‘Celebrate’ was released
online and the tag ‘GOSPEL ON DEBEAT ft BURNA BOY’….few hours later the
video had been taken down from youtube due to unknown reason.
HipHopWorld
Online put a call to Gospel who immediately turned off his phone after
hearing the ‘What happened with you and Burna Boy video’ question put to
him. More calls to him proved futile as his phone had been switched
off. Our correspondent later got an anonymous call from a member of
Gospel’s team who narrated and explained the situation and why the video
had been taken down.
“The video was taken down by Burna Boy’s management…” he said…“…They said Gospel breached a contract..”
According
to him, Gospel is currently compiling materials for his producer album
and a while back had met with Burna Boy while the latter was in Abuja
and the song was recorded. It was from the release of the audio that it
seemed like something was up as the tag had been changed to be in Burna
Boy’s name….regardless, both parties were on good terms.
A
few months later when Burna Boy and his manager were in Abuja, Gospel
approached them that he wanted to shoot a video to the song to be shot
by Patrick Elis. But on the day of the shoot, Burna Boy’s lawyer called
Gospel telling him to refrain from shooting the video for reason
undisclosed….having his own team call back and forth, they reached
agreement which was signed. Unknown to Gospel there is a clause that has
him handover the song to Burna boy but claim rights to the productions
and proceeds, upon release of the video with the ‘GOSPEL ft BURNA BOY’
tag…the clause was immediately activated.
He
also went on to state that all was settled now. ”…But they have settled
it now, it’s no big deal…It’s just a lesson to the team.” On royalties,
he also added, ”They have agreed that the proceeds from ringback
tones/online sales will go to both parties plus other things I can’t
tell you right now…the new video will be out in a bit”
A call placed to Burna Boy’s management team picked up by Koch AR was met with a “No comment”.
Well, good thing they have settled as this could have gone messier
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