Disco rivals lock horns again
CHIPPA LEGODIMO
Correspondent
| Tuesday July 29, 2008 00:00
As if he were playing his song, Italente, the Gaborone based Mazolwane says Tshanda has now instructed jukebox companies to take out all his (Mazolwane) CDs. Italente was the title song for the last album the Eastern Cape musician released under Dalom Music, Tshanda's stable.
It was released at the time when the two artistes' relationship had already gone sour and it was just a matter of contractual obligations that forced the two to work together on that one.
Last week, Mazolwane called this reporter informing him that he was angry at the way Tshanda was doing business. He said that on a recent tour in the northern parts of Botswana he found that his CDs were missing from the juke boxes and on enquiry he was told that Tshanda had instructed the owners to remove all Splash and Mazolwane's CDs from the machines.
'He should not remove my music because if he does not need his to play there, I want mine to play. I do not think he was genuine when he said those jukebox owners were not paying royalties to him because if so he could have left mine. Who said I needed to be paid that money. This was just a plan to have my CDs out of there. He does not care if his music is not there because he is selling well,' Mazolwane said.
Both Mazolwane and Tshanda are South African musicians whose music sells more here than back home where the advent of kwaito, house and Afro pop seems to have pushed disco into oblivion.
At first they were not competing for the local market as they were still under the same record company but since Mazolwane left under a cloud of controversy five years ago, things have not been the same.
After Mazolwane left, he was stripped of the platinum selling trading name Peacock, and a new artiste Mpendulo Dandile has been roped in to take over as the new Peacock.
This has not clearly been taken well by Mazolwane who has admitted that using his real name has not brought him the same success as when he was still called Peacock releasing a smash hit Isiponono on debut. It looked like they had put their differences aside some time last year and were already talking of a reunion, but that has not happened and the old wounds seem to have resurfaced.
Tshanda has denied instructing anyone to stop playing Mazolwane's music, saying he only told jukebox owners to stop playing all artistes from his stable because they were not paying him any royalties.
'I only speak for artistes under my stable and there was no way I could say they should not play Thabile's music. I do not even know if he is still releasing.
I will stand by my words anywhere because these people put my music in their machines without even consulting me. But who am I to tell people to stop playing other artistes' material,' Tshanda said.While Mazolwane claims that Tshanda even told the owners of the jukeboxes to remove anything that sounds like his music, the ace producer denied such a charge.'I cannot tell people to stop playing Lucky Dube because his songs sound like Matshikos',' he said.