House muso says top SA DJ stole his song
South African record labels Afrotainment and Kalawa Jazmee are at loggerheads over the rights to a remixed song.
DJ Tira. Image courtesy of Facebook.com/DJTira
Sunday World reports that Pex Africah from the Kalawa Jazmee stable is accusing Afrotainment’s DJ Tira of using one of his songs without permission.
According to Pex, Tira stole “the lyrics and the vocals” of a track called Ntokaz’enhle and merely “used a different beat” before renaming it Intokazi. Now a club hit, the song is featured on DJ Cndo’s latest album, Finest Lady of House Vol 5.
Pex wrote the song with vocalist Wendy Soni in 2011, and it features on the ‘Kalawa Jazmee Dance’ compilation album.
DJ Tira isn’t disputing Pex’s ownership of the song though, but claims that they “had a verbal agreement that I could use his song.” Apparently he presented the newspaper with an SMS he says proves this.
Afrotainment, however, only credits Wendy Soni on the ‘Finest Lady of House’ sleeve. She is listed as co-lyricist of the track alongside DJ Cndo but reacted with surprise when approached for comment.
“This is all new to me,” she said.
“That’s all my work. I haven’t worked with anyone on the song but Pex in 2011.”
According to Cndo, she only “got the a cappella and asked Toxic to do a remix”.
– TeamTalk
