Johannesburg- Legendary musician William Mthethwa who bandaged bleeding hearts with the song Ema O Tsamae, is today breaking the same hearts with his decision to walk away from the music scene with a broken heart.
Mthethwa, who is diabetic, dropped a bombshell when his was celebrating his 55th birthday on Friday when he announced that he was quitting music because its politics was taking a heavy tall on his health. He also said he would sell his music catalogue to highest bidder and concentrate on his charity organisation, William Mthethwa Foundation, whose core business is to look after old age homes.
“It is the best birthday gift I have given myself in the past few years. Our industry is nothing but a toxic environment that feeds off the blood of artists,” he said.
Speaking to Sunday World, Mthethwa said he took a decision to hang his microphone after realising his latest album Moment of Silence last year.
“I have been short-changed my royalties and abused by this cruel industry since the dawn of democracy but couldn’t do anything but kept on hoping that things would change. But the more things change, the more they remain the same. I can say without shame that though the apartheid regime was bad, or industry was better then,” he said.
Mthethwa said collecting societies have been paying royalties of his 480 songs to three relatives of a well-known SABC radio presenter and when he put up a fight to nib it in the bid his music career was deliberately sabotaged.
The muso said the presenter’s relatives were featured in his songs as composers when he was signed under Devon music label as a ruse to pay payola for his ditties to be played on air.
“That was one of the most sophisticated payola payments introduced by this syndicate,” he said.
Mthethwa said when Devon was bought by a well-known multinational record company, he was questioned about the bogus composers, but it too couldn’t do anything about.
“I then left the multinational company to go and start my own record label as a strategy to pull out of this fraudulent deal, but all SABC radio station stopped playing my music. I even brought this to the attention of Hlaudi Motsoeneng (Former SABC COO) but he left because fixing the matter,” he said.
Mthethwa said he realised that his diabetes was becoming worse because of the battles he was fighting in the industry.
“My health comes first. Those who still have the energy and good health to fight let them continue to do so, they have my support. But my journey ends here, I quit,” he said.
He said he had applied for funding to for his foundation and once the money start rolling in, he would use it to improve the lives of the pensioners living in the old age homes.
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