Platinum Award-winning singer Amanda Ami Faku has been reported to be in a legal battle with Vth Season boss and manager Raphael Benza, over royalties.
Taking to the Johannesburg High Court, Ami is seeking an order to force him to disclose his accounting books and to remit payments of her royalties. This order will need to declare the artist agreement, management agreement, and publishing agreement she signed with Benza and his stable, Vth Season. “I am a black South African female music artist. I draw to the attention of this honourable court that I refer to my gender and my colour for the reason that the second respondent (who is a foreign national from Liberia) has the propensity to see out potentially successful young black female music artists and to entice them into a contractual relationship with either himself or with the first respondent to their detriment and to the first and second respondents’ financial gain,” she stated in the court papers.
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Benza, who had been managing late AKA said he was approached her and asked by Faku to manage her work in 2018. She said when she signed the three contracts with Benza, who was previously deported to his native country for living in South Africa illegally, she was still naïve, and the company took advantage of her. She alleged she was not given an opportunity to consult with an attorney before signing the contracts. She said the artist agreement was for 12 months and had expired in September 2019. The first option period, being 18 months in terms of a clause, which was automatically invoked, she said, expired on March 23, 2021. The second option period, also 18 months, expired on September 22, 2023. “As such, in terms of the said agreement, the artist agreement terminated with the effluxion of time on at least 23 September 2023. As such, the artist agreement has come to an end,” she stated in the court papers.
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Faku said during the currency of the agreement, she composed the project Imali and was supposed to receive 50% of the net income received by the stable from the licensing of recordings to third parties for synchronisation with picture for motion pictures (including theatrical, broadcast, cable, or satellite and home video) uses, among others. She alleged that she was entitled to receive 50% of all public performance royalties. “As I explained, the first respondent is in breach of clause 9.1 of the agreement and has failed to render an account to me as provided for in that clause,” she said. “It instead elected to dump on me by way of Dropbox files, hundreds of pages of discombobulated documents, which are incomplete and not accurate,” she stated. “The dumping of documents by way of files on a computer platform was not in accordance with the ingredients of such accounting procedure contemplated by clause 9.1 of the artist agreement,” she said. Faku added the company owns the masters of Imali which she paid more than R400 000 for its production costs from her own pocket. “It is respectfully submitted that the first respondent’s claim to ownership of the master of the album Imali can only have application if the first respondent paid for the production costs of that album. For the purpose of this application, I do not claim in these proceedings a declaration of ownership in the album known as Imali as such a claim is likely to be the subject matter of a declaratory order which I will seek in this honourable court in due course”. She said Benza and his stable had no right to deduct the costs of producing the album from her royalties. Benza has not responded to the allegations.
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