Matterhorn VS VP Records
Who owns 'Dutty Wine'?
Who really owns Dutty Wine? Supa Hype the producer, or Matterhorn the songwriter/performer. The battle over rights triggered by VP's insistence on shows once again how our industry seems to be ignoring sound business practices.
Who can blame Matterhorn? Him hot right now, him waan a big money deal from Atlantic, but if VP block it until Dutty Wine stale out, dem can just get up and go to Jamaica, and quietly get the rights to all of Tony Matterhorn's songs, and just straight go put out a 'Best of Tony Matterhorn' and him jus' dead right de so. Still, his comments about producers having to sign something with him before him voice is highly unusual. Who really have the power in the business? The producers or the artistes. The way it look to me, the producers dem ah go get a beating from all angle.
In rap, the artistes dem respect the name-brand producers, but at yard, producers no get no respect, it obvious. Everybody tink seh dem a sellout when is the artiste dem sell out demself. Ah nuff tune VP hold on pon fi people because dem can do so LEGALLY, when VP artistes go voice pon certain riddim, and the producer is about to get a deal with Greensleeves or somebody else, ah just crazy problem inna the business. The bottomline is that the artistes need to read the fine print in all their contracts with major recording companies, and start getting smart about the business side of entertainment.
Glen Washington Freed in Miami
Reggae lovers breathed a collective sigh of relief earlier this week when crooner Glen Washington walked away a free man after his hearing in South Florida.
"He had his hearing in mid-week, and his lawyers were there and did a good job, so he walked away a free man. I don't know the terms and conditions of the whole thing, but at least him free. He had been detained for at least two weeks. He should be back on the road again soon," a Miami-based source told YardFlex.com.
NO CHAM FOR ICM Fest
It seems that the recent falling out between Cham and Escoffery of ICM Fest made it to the public sphere when Cham lashed out at the event during his Irie Jamboree performance recently. It seems that there had been some agreement that Cham would have done the gig as one of his promotional radio dates, but Cham has refused to, and so began a war of words that erupted into a public lambasting that smeared the image of the ICM Fest and painted it as a 'fraud show'. Hope that Escoffery and Cham can patch up their differences, 'cause music nuh fi have dem negative vibes de.
Beres Hammond tour pulls up lame?
Why has Beres Hammond's tour just stalled in mid-water? All the other tours did well, One Love, Reggae Sunsplash, the Marleys, so what happened to Beres? Right now, it couldn't be over saturation because is only Buju's Too Bad' tour ah gwaan right now, so mi woulda love fi know what a gwaan right now. 'Pull up the vibes that you're playing, what has happened to the tour?'. Ah that people ah sing right now.
