Entertainment of Wednesday, 26 February 2014

Source: Nii Ogbamey Tetteh-News One

Kwaw Kese and I saved MUSIGA from Obour - Fennec

NEWS-ONE has picked signals that the tussle between artiste manager Fennec Okyere and rapper Kwaw Kese on one hand and the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA) about who has legal rights to use the franchise and brand name, “Ghana Music Week” is coming to a peaceful end.

Fennec Okyere is said to have agreed to hand over the rights of the brand name to MUSIGA if only it would be registered in the Union’s name but not the name of another private company.

Though MUSIGA was putting up a bold face in the media, NEWS-ONE has been reliably informed the Union has sent emissaries to dialogue with Fennec for a settlement of the tussle and this seemed to have yielded some positive result.

“I am ready to go to the Registrar General’s Department and change the name from mine to that of MUSIGA so the Union owns the franchise and this would save us all because if you remember, after MUSIGA held the first one, we were told that a certain company had registered it and if I had not gone to do this, by now the story would be that Ghana Music Week belongs to a private company,” Fennec noted.

In an earlier interview with NEWS-ONE, Fennec explained that he and Kwaw Kese went ahead to register “Ghana Music Week” as their company because they felt Obour and his administration were trying to outsmart the members of the Union.

Fennec, who has been receiving threats on his life over his claims on GMW, added that Obour had earlier admitted on radio that the music festival was owned by a company called Yendi; a story which turned out to be false.

According to him, his sources had told him that Obour was getting ready to register the GMW celebrations as his personal entity, and he felt that was unfair to the entire creative industry.

“My Brother do you know what has brought about this fight? When Obour was asked who owns Ghana Music Week sometime last year, he said it was owned by a company called Yendi and our checks at the Registrar General show that that was not true. Which means Obour and his people had decided to register the name of the Union’s event in their private name so that many years after they were gone they will own the event and claim royalties. It is a clear case of Obour using his colleagues and trying to outsmart them,” Fennec revealed.

Meanwhile, checks by the paper disclosed that since Mad Time Entertainment threatened to sue MUSIGA and any other cooperate body involved with the GMW festival jointly and severally, Obour and his administration have been behind closed doors deliberating on how best to resolve the issue.