Zapp Mallet, one of Ghana’s greatest sound engineers and a pioneer of the hiplife music genre, has disclosed what his biggest regret is since he got into the music business or Showbiz.
It was during an interview with Rev. Erskine on Y107.9FM’s Y-Leaderboard Series that he disclosed that he regrets focusing only on the ‘show’ aspect of music and neglecting the business side of it.
“We weren’t concentrating on the business side of it. We were just happy with the art. It’s show business or Showbiz but we were just looking at the show and neglected the business. As a producer, I was just recording people and I wasn’t thinking about royalties. I never even thought about royalties back then but today things have changed”, he said.
Asked if the reason he never cared about royalties was that he did not know about it, Zapp replied that he did know about royalties, however, he just did not know how it worked or the processes to go through to get paid those royalties.
Zapp also added that “Because it was so much of a novelty at the time, sometimes demanding it becomes an issue. You’ll be seen as too-known, you’ll even get blackballed and that’ll be it for you because you can’t work with anybody again. People won’t come to you because they know you will say you want this or that as payment so you’re even scared to demand what you’re entitled to”.
He mentioned, however, that the situation has changed now and people are able to freely demand their royalties because people now have all the knowledge they need about royalties and how to get them.
By: Maureen Dedei Quaye