WAS TONGAI MOYO THE BIGGEST OF THE COPYCATS?
WAS the late Tongai Moyo the BIGGEST of the copycats on the local musical scene?
In the wake of the Jah Signal/ Charambas fallout, focus has also turned on Moyo who, by his own admission, was inspired by the late Leonard Dembo.
Music promoter, entrepreneur and arts commentator, Max Mugabe, said:
“The Dembo and Tongai Moyo era, in my view, benefited a lot from the record label structure which provided administrative services for clearances of samples.
“In most cases, the record labels wanted to have a similar artist to provide an alternative to the other and, as such, encouraged similarities if belonging from the same stable or a rival artist with similarities if they belonged to a different stable fighting for market share
“However, in this digital era, it would have been easy for Tongai to attribute the infringement to the original owner that Dembo would have also sampled from as most of his productions included samples from East Africa.
“With a competent IP lawyer, he could argue 'Fair Use' or 'interpolation' so success would depend on the interpretation of the claimed infringement.”
He added:
“Consent is always vital and a pre-requisite.
“However in an environment where right holders are not forthcoming with clearances or gatekeeping it is fair game.”
Another critic, Uncle Joe, who is based in South Africa, said:
“Historically, sungura music has thrived on a rich tradition of artistic cross-pollination and evolution.
“Artists like Dembo benefitted from such evolutions and ‘borrowing' from others.
“No person can assert absolute originality, given the collaborative and adaptive nature of artistic expression.
“If Dembo had acted on Tongai, we wouldn't be talking about Tongai's massive contributions to the industry.
“Tongai left us a treasure trove of innovations,” he said.
He added:
“I would argue that we ‘test' some of these social media judgments in a proper platform or grant experts in copyright law to guide us.
“We cannot have, for example, mere guitarists or vocalists packaged as key experts giving expert opinions on social media about copyright law.
“Without ventilating such matters, in a competent court of law, discussions on such matters constitute bar talk often characterised by myopia.
“Consent should always be sought. No doubt. In my view, it is imperative to subject most of these alleged ‘copyright infringement cases' to scrutiny in a competent court of law.”
Musician Gift Amuli defended Dhewa.
“It's unfair to say he was a copycat but he was simply inspired by the late Dembo.
“After all, he created personal hits and as artists we are inspired by others even though we go on to reinvent the wheel,” he said.