MZANSI musicians are gatvol of music executives, and they want what’s theirs.
They will march to the Universal Music offices in Rosebank, Joburg, on Tuesday, 30 April, to demand a change.
One of the march organisers, Sello "Chicco" Twala, told Daily Sun that musicians feel robbed by record companies.
“It’s a well-known fact that the music sector is not controlled by musicians; all these music institutions aren’t run by musicians, which means we don’t benefit from them. We’ve seen musicians dying as paupers while executives are living large. They don’t have medical aid and basic things like pension funds. The most important thing we are marching for tomorrow are the digital royalties,” he said.
Chicco said labels haven’t been keeping up to the end of their deals.
“Most musicians used to get about 10% of royalties for their physical album sales. Back then, we didn’t have digital streaming platforms (DSP) such as Spotify and Apple Music. The agreement was that if they didn’t manufacture CDs and DVDs for us, then we would get 50%.
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“We’ve stopped using those now. We’ve moved digitally. In our agreements, there’s something called secondary usage. All agreements have that, meaning that if something like DSPs come into effect, labels will pay musicians 50% versus the 10% they were paying us, but we aren't,” he said.
The legendary musician said maskandi and gospel musicians are the most affected.
“Most maskandi musicians aren’t educated, and labels use this to their advantage. They're taking millions from them. Gospel musicians are also not being paid. They still get the same percentage for the physical sales, which is not what was agreed upon," Chicco said.
He said the march is only the beginning.
“This is an introduction to what’s coming. We’re going to have another march after the elections. We’ve alerted the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture, Zizi Kodwa. All the companies are doing as they please with our money. As musicians, we don’t get value for our money.
“Tomorrow, we're going to tell them that we want change. We don’t appreciate that they're the sole beneficiaries of our hard work. Enough is enough! Money is being stolen. We need to regroup as musicians and make sure they know it’s time they listen to us and not tell us what to do,” Chicco said.
