Elani Speaks About The Ills At MCSK

CELEBRATED Kenyan music group, Elani, has finally revealed why they have been silent over the past couple of months.

The KooKoo hit-makers through a video they shared on social media, disclosed that they stopped releasing new songs after realising that were being conned by the body in charge of remitting royalties to local musicians, the Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK).According to the award-winning group, MCSK officials have been deliberately "stealing" their monies effectively ensuring that they run into debts and thereby crippling their operations.

The group took issue with the shocking fact they were paid a mere Sh31,000 as royalties for the year 2014, despite the fact that the group had at least five mega hit songs on constant rotation on local TV and radio stations. According to the three-member band, this huge discrepancy led the discovery that something was totally amiss.

Things would later get more confusing after Elani approached the MSCK demanding to see the music logs – documents that show how often music was played on local radio stations. To their surprise, the music group was given two different sets of logs for the same period of time. While explaining this occurrence, MCSK claimed that they don’t monitor all radio stations adding that many stations give false logs.
Elani then decided to go to the radio stations to establish the truth but soon after MCSK got wind of their action, they called the group’s lead vocalist, Brian Chweya and gave him Sh300,000 as compensation.

This shocking turn of events left Elani questioning the transparency of the society that was established to ensure that artistes reap the benefits of their hard work.Elani now joins a long list of local musicians who have expressed their dissatisfaction with MCSK’s operations. Others who have accused the organisation of wrong-doing include Ringtone and Pitson – who shocked his fans after revealing that he was paid only Sh5,000 in royalties for his mega hit  Lingala Ya Yesu.
Listen and watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLONcjTZ9z0