Music of Wednesday, 21 January 2015

Source: Razz Newspaper

Guru caught again in 'song stealing' accusations

The issue of song-stealing is not new to the industry and so long as the industry continues to fledge, accusations of artistes stealing songs will also persist but it is worrying if one name is always mentioned anytime the issue of song-stealing comes up.

In less than a month, rapper Guru has been accused by another upcoming artistes for pilfering his song. After songs like ‘Nkwadaa Nkwadaa’, ‘Boys Abre’ and ‘Azonto Boys’ received rave reviews, the artiste has released new singles and two of such singles have come under serious questioning.

On Hitz FM last week, K9, manager of budding artiste Nautica, accused Guru of stealing ‘Oboompa’, a song recorded by his artiste – which they have prepped for promotion in the coming days.

According to K9, when ‘Oboompa’ was done, it needed some major boost and so Management decided to approach Guru for that feature. Guru was said to have listened to the song, agreed to do the feature but requested for an amount of GHC3, 000 – an amount K9 said was too exorbitant to pay.

According to him, they shelved the idea of a Guru-feature after he requested for that amount and he was overly shocked when he was prompted to a website only to realize that the song has been posted there with Guru as the owner of the song. When Guru was contacted, he claimed that he got the song from some boys from Brong Ahafo. He heard the song, liked it and featured the boys on it and made it his own.

Right before this accusation, another young rapper, Osagy Osagy brazenly accused Guru for pilfering his song ‘Bossu’ which has the same arrangements chorus settings as one of Guru’s latest works also titled ‘Bossu'.

Osagy claimed that he sent his song to some industry ‘heavyweights’ for support, approval and possible feature on the song and Guru was one of the people he sent his song to. According to him, he was overly aghast when he heard the release of ‘Bossu’ on air as a song belonging to Guru.

Guru was not available for commentary on the accusation leveled at him by the young rapper who resides in the Volta Region.

Guru is no stranger to issues of song-stealing. Last year, young and enterprising act, Tee Phlow accused the rapper of stealing the concept of ‘Alkaida’, claiming he (Guru) was the first artiste to come out with the song with the title when indeed, he (Tee Phlow) released his ‘Alkaida’ song – right after the GhOne organized hip hop completion “The Next Big Thang’, a competition he placed 2nd.