Ghanaian hiplife artiste Flokingstone has called on the Ghana Music Rights Organisation (GHAMRO) to emulate Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia’s digitalisation drive and digitalise the monitoring of song plays to facilitate the accurate payment of royalties to artistes.
The artiste was speaking on the Accra Chat segment of Accra100.5FM’s drivetime show, Nkran Kwanso, on Thursday, 25 November 2021.
According to the artiste, monitoring the number of plays a particular song gets digitally will not only aid the association to pay royalties to artistes but also ensure that they are paid according to the number of times their songs get played on the airwaves.
He told show host Doctor Kay: “I feel the industry needs to sit down and come together to agree on how to collect the monies [from people who play a particular song]”.
“There should be proper mechanisms for collecting the monies because their issue is that they are not able to collect the monies because only a few people pay for using or playing a particular song and, so, they only have a little money to distribute when it comes to the payment of [royalties].”
He suggested: “So, if they adopt something like what Bawumia is doing, you [the person using an artiste’s song] will be forced to pay by force”.
The ‘Taking Over’ hitmaker, therefore, urged the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA) and GHAMRO, to take the opportunity of the government’s digitalisation of the economy and digitalise its systems.
“I feel we should do it,” the artiste stated.
