Johannesburg – Popular Gqom duo Bello No Gallo are being accused of stealing their hit song Khula from fellow musicians The Elevators and Niseni.
The Elevator, which comprises of Nkululeko Ngcobo and Sphamandla Shongwe, has written a letter to a collecting society to stop paying needle-time royalties to Bello no Gallo and their record companies Open Mic and Ziyenzeka Entertainment until the matter is resolved.
They have also threatened to take legal action against the three if they did not accede to their demand to refrain from claiming ownership of the song‘s copyright.
News that Bello No Gallo, Ziyenzeka Entertainment, and Open Mic have stolen Niseni and The Elevator and Niseni’s intellectual property, was revealed in a letter written by the aggrieved musicians’ representative, VusiLeeuw Consulting, to royalty collectors, South African Music Performance Rights Organisation (Samphra).
In the letter, which we have seen, VusiLeeuw, which represents artists on copyright infringements, said the song which was number one on the top 10 list of Ukhozi’s FM’s 2021 Song of the Year was The Elevators and Niseni’s brainchild and Open Mic, Bello No Gallo and Ziyezenka Entertainment have no claim to it.
” Our clients are the performers and authors of “Khula”. It is our understanding that Ziyenzeka Entertainment and Open Mic Publishing claim ownership of the copyright in the recording and may have already received needle-time royalties from SAMPRA in this regard. The ownership of the copyright in the recording is in fact in dispute,” reads the letter which was written last week.
The company requested Samphra to thus suspend the payment of royalties until the dispute is resolved as the trio ignored several letters they wrote to them to discuss the matter.
The company said The Elevators cooked the beat of the ditty in their studio and sent it Neseni, born Mzamani Mthethwa, to wax lyrics for it.
Niseni, who doubles as a vocalist, went to Umlazi studio with Bello and Gallo, to record the vocals because he did not have the proper infrastructure in his studio to record them.
As such, our clients are not co-authors of the recording with Bello no Gallo. Our clients have proposed mediation with Ziyenzeka Entertainment/Open Mic concerning ownership of the copyright in the recording in late November 2021. Ziyenzeka Entertainment/Open Mic ignored our proposal. We wrote a letter to Open Mic 2 weeks ago and they responded on Monday 24 in which they still claim full ownership of the master, leaving the matter still in dispute,” reads the letter.
“We request that SAMPRA refrain from making any distribution of the owner’s share of needle-time revenue to Ziyenzeka Entertainment /Open Mic pending the outcome of the dispute referred to above.,” further reads the letter.
The company threatened to take legal action if the matter is not swiftly resolved.
Open MiC representative Lionel Jamela declined to comment.
“ We know Vusi Leeuw is behind this, he can f…k off,” he said
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