Yaa Yeboah, speaking on United Showbiz on UTV, expressed consternation over the level of ignorance in the Ghanaian music industry that causes artists to feel entitled to use the intellectual property of other people without due recourse.
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Yeboah descended on Medikal and Criss Waddle in particular, who angrily took to X (formerly Twitter) to question the ‘Christianess’ of Alabaster Box for suing Medikal over his use of a snippet from their timeless classic, ‘Welcome’, in his new song ‘Welcome to Africa’.
Waddle had written on X in reaction to the lawsuit, which seeks Ghc 15m in damages: ““If they were secular musicians I will understand,But Gospel? You can ask to be paid but to ask for 15 million cedis? How much does a whole album generate? If u want to be wicked don’t add Christianity to ur identity,”
His words triggered MC Yaa Yeboah who dragged the businessman/musician and his protege: “You’ve taken somebody’s hook without changing anything – you took the same thing…for your rap. Then the people out of respect write to you and tell you that, do the right thing or we take you to court. You feel you’re smart so you go back and remove the offending part out and repost the video. Then they take you to court and someone thinks they can question your Christianity. The ignorance in this industry is too much!” Yeboah fumed.
Yeboah said Medikal could have forestalled all this with a simple phone call or a visit to Alabaster Box to seek permission before utilising the song.
Alabaster Box dragged Medikal to court for copyright infringement over his use of part of their song, ‘Welcome’, in a recent song he released.
The group initially sent a cease and desist letter to Medikal for him to pull down the music with the offending material and to provide an accounting of all revenue earned by the music or face a court battle.
Medikal refused to respond, leading to being slapped with a Ghc 15 million lawsuit a few days later.
