COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENTS: Komoblastic blows hot

Veteran afro hip pop artiste Komoblastic Komolafe has weighed-in on the growing increase of musician’s especially the older generation accusing the younger ones in the industry of sampling their songs without permission.

Komoblastic who himself accused 2face Idibia of sampling his song ‘Jungle Don Mature’ and even threatened to sue the one-time Kennis Music signee way back in 2009 said Nigerian artistes should get serious with their mechanical rights.

Baring his mind in an interview with Ripples Nigeria the musician who earned his name after his grade 3 teacher struggled to pronounce his name and asked if he could call him ‘KOMO’ noted that in saner climes, anyone who is found to have breached the laws governing intellectual property will be served court papers.

“Every artiste has a mechanical right which gives him/her prerogative to give another artiste the right to reproduce or right to sample a piece of music onto CDs, DVDs, records or tapes.

Read also: Sir Victor Uwaifo accuses Jaywon, Simi of remixing his song without permission

“That right comes in the form of a mechanical license provided by the holder of the copyright of the composition or musical work to another party to cover, reproduce, or sample specific parts of his/her original composition.

“If that right to reproduce is not given from one artiste to the other before it is sampled, the originator has the right to sue. That is the practice abroad and I am using this medium to tell Nigerian artistes to be aware and get serious with their mechanical rights.

The artiste who was instrumental in the popularization of his genre, after organising the first Afro Hip Hop Concert in Lagos which drew a large crowd of about 50,000 in the early 90’s, has dropped a fresh single after a 10-year hiatus titled ‘Benzima’ featuring Sugarboy and is currently in the studio cooking-up a follow-up single titled ‘Kparobo’ which features HKN co-owner Davido.

Over the years, Komoblastic has never allowed the power of music to be dwindled on account of boundaries as he distinguished himself early on in the scene by capitalizing on his knowledge of four different Nigerian dialects, which he often uses in most of his songs in order to increase the number of people who could really understand and enjoy his music.

 

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