Sarkodie in trouble

Ghana’s pride in hiphop music, Sarkodie, seems to be in trouble. His crime, according to a renowned music producer and manager, Mark Okraku- Mantey is the latter’s remake of Daasebre’s Kokoko without his permission.

Speaking on The Pundit on Gh One last Tuesday, Mark expressed his disappointment over not being consulted and argued that he was disrespected even if the song was a tribute to the highlife artiste who died in July last year.

The former manager of Daasebre said he would sue the Baby hitmaker for theft of intellectual property to set the right example for others to desist from the act.

According to the CEO of Slip music, he wouldn’t have had a problem with a musician who is not in Ghana and does not have access to him but the situation is quite different when the culprit had access yet ignored him.

“Under normal circumstances, if he had called me to say that he is doing a remix of Kokoko as a tribute to Daasebre, I would have just given him the go-ahead. I would want to hear it sound good or even better. The most important part of this whole thing is how funny it sounds. I never heard from him until Jon Germain sent me a link and I heard a song I composed many years ago.  At least, I deserved to be shown some respect.

“I am the sampling master in this country so we know how this game plays. I know when the person does not have access to me or I don’t have access to the person, it is a different ball game. However, when the person is just next door, you know the person can chase you so we shouldn’t take this case for granted. If he doesn’t do as expected, then I have no other choice than to use him to set an example for the younger ones to learn from,” he said on the show.

Sarkodie first performed the tribute song in memory of Daasebre Gyamenah with Akwaboah at the 2016 Rapperholic Concert held at the Accra International Conference Center on December 25 last year.