Remember The Eagle (RTE) record label has found itself in skirmishes again, this time over royalties and recording ownership with its former artist, Stanzo.
Charmy Kurz, an artist signed under the label, on Sunday released her new single ‘Habibi’. However, it didn’t take long before she found herself embroiled in drama after her former record label mate, Stanzo, called her out and the label owner, Ennio Hamutenya, for stealing the beat.
Stanzo told VIBEZ! RTE illegally used the instrumentals on ‘Habibi’ without his permission and didn’t credit, or pay him. “The reason for them only wanting ‘Habibi’ is that it’s the record that has drawn the attention of the executives at Empire Records in America, including Jaycen Joshua who was helping RTE secure an international distribution deal worth millions at the time, and they needed to own the record for the deal to work,” he explained.
Stanzo said the label breached its own contract by sending him an illegal termination letter, and accused Hamutenya of failing to do his contractual obligations for the duration of the agreement with him.
“Full ownership of ‘Habibi’ and every other musical work was shifted back to me, and was then registered under Stanzo as an independent artist at Nascam and RISA,” he said. Stanzo stated that the label never owned the record, “they only owned a percentage of it, which they lost when they breached the initial contract they had”.
The artist, through a letter from his legal representatives sent to RTE, claims the label sought to attain control and exclusive right of exploitation to the recording of the song.
He further said the label also wished to secure copyright over a jointly held song between him and Tangeni Amalenga, titled ‘Jungle Fever’. Stanzo noted that he is not opposed to agreeing to the transfer of such rights.
“I hereby grant RTE an opportunity to acquire the rights and titles to the recordings, subject to adequate compensation. I remain amenable to sit down and discuss the specifics of this transaction,” he said.
The artist further accused the label of breaching a number of verbal agreements, including, but not limited to, its failure to pay his royalties for the two records he engineered on the ‘DDD’ project for former label mates, Slaughterhouze. As per the agreement, Stanzo, therefore, demanded full compensation.
RTE’s side of the story
The label rubbishes the allegations made by their former artist, saying the claims have been made to mislead the public about the ownership of ‘Habibi’. The label’s public relations officer, Caroline Oherein, said ‘Habibi’ was specifically created and recorded under RTE Records for Kurz, who at the time recorded multiple songs with the label’s in-house producers as well as artists for her global endeavours.
“As per every artist’s and producer’s contract at the time, all music produced, written, and recorded under RTE Records belongs to the label. Ownership rights would, however, shift once the money invested in an artist is repaid,” Oherein stated, adding the label also owns and receives 100% of royalties and masters until the invested amount is recuperated. She said Stanzo is attempting to bring the image of RTE into disrepute, before adding that he rejected the termination agreement, which was offered to him with no expectation of investment repayment, as well as the ownership of music he worked on except for ‘Habibi’ and an unreleased song.
“His refusal to accept the offer has led RTE to follow through with the original terms of his contract,” Oherein said.
Furthermore, she said the label is ready to compensate the involved parties once the hundreds of thousands invested in their careers are repaid. Stanzo, however, refuted these claims, saying there was no investment amount on his contract agreed on between him and RTE.
“There is nothing to repay, because they never made a direct investment into my career,” he told this reporter. He explained that he rejected the illegal termination terms, because it was a breach of their initial agreement, and the letter said that if he accepted these terms, RTE would have ownership over ‘Habibi’ and ‘Jungle Fever’, hence he refused to sign the contract.
“We followed-up with a legal document with my own termination terms wherein I stated that I accept the termination but not all the terms, such as waving my rights to the two records I produced which is ‘Jungle Fever’ and ‘Habibi’, and if they want to use those instrumentals, they would have to pay us for our work first, which they said they would if they were to use it in the future.”
Shortly after its establishment in 2021, RTE was involved in controversies surrounding similar issues with its former artists.
Numerous artists and producers that were signed under the label have gone their separate ways, including popular music group, Slaughterhouze, songstress Shana Zandile, DJ Tumi Mohamed.
– ashikololo@nepc.com.na