The causes of the said 'fight' between Wizkid and his boss, Banky W has
been revealed by the man in the centre of it all, Banky W. He has a lot
to say in this chat with City People. See excerpt below:
When you released that album there was something a lot of people noticed?
Let me tell you that Wizkid wasn’t on the album.
First of all, I want to say that what we like to call ‘Bad Belle People’
because they think there may be bad news and when you don’t give them
that news they start to create it because I guess bad news sells more
than good news. So I want to say categorically that there was no twitter
fight. People go on-line and use Photoshop to create my profile and say
that I said this and then they go and create Wizkid’s profile and say
he said this.
The bottom line is first of all, that never happened and what happened
is that we’ve been working on Wizzy’s project to make it work
internationally and when you are getting to that level things change. He
has his own idea of what he wants to do and we are in 100 percent in
support of that and these are things that we dreamed of back in 2009
when I signed him. I felt like this guy can blow all over the world,
this guy can you know really be a star and now that it has happened it
is a good thing. There is a disturbing London angle he wants to take and
so on and so forth and there is a contract in place and he is still
signed to EME.
So he is still signed to EME?
Absolutely he is still signed to EME.
Because the general believe is that he started his own thing, ‘Star Boy entertainment.’
Well, you know that is something else he wants to do. He wants to start
his record label and I mean I started my own label and look where I am
today. You have a lot of people fabricating stuff and trying to make it
feel like there is a battle and you know we don’t believe in that. We
are all mature, we are all grown up people and we are all happy for one
another.
You know he is starting his label and we are in support of that, he is
going internationally and working with Disturbing London, and we are in
support of that. There is still the Konvict Music angle which we also
orchestrated so I guess we can call it restructuring but we are all on
the table negotiating and figuring out the best way to make the project
move forward. There is no beef, Wiz is absolutely a part of the family
legally, he is still signed even aside from contract somethings are
bigger than contract and money. EME and Wiz will continue.
It is just that we are figuring out the terms and the reason he is not
on the album and in fact he had worked on some one or two things that
were supposed to be on the album but in the interest of kind of
respecting the conversation that we were having, you know what let’s
figure out where we are going and how we are going to do his next level
stuff. So we decided as a group to suspend the music that we worked on
together just for now till we figure out all of that. We are almost at
the conclusion will that. He is absolutely and will always be a part of
the family. I mean we created history, this is somebody whose debut
album took the whole country, the continent by storm and you know we all
worked on that, so it is a good thing not a bad thing, growth is good
so that is really the long and short of it.
How does it work for him to have star boy entertainment and still be a part of EME?
I would give you a fantastic example, Kanye West has “Good Music” and he
is still with Rock Nation, Rockafella that is all I am going to say
about it. There is no beef, no war. One day I woke up and I saw on
twitter that somebody has used Photoshop to make my profile and said
some random things and used some terrible English that I have never used
in my life it just unfortunate that as far as we have come as an
industry there are still some people in the media and I want to give
credit to guys like City People.
You guys never took that route and I respect you people for that because
some other blogs and sites started creating things out of thin air to
cause a problem. We are working and we are all trying to achieve our
dreams and hopefully taking this movement to another level. I have never
said anything negative about Wiz, and Wiz has never said anything
negative about me publicly and let’s just accept and leave it like that.
Wiz will continue to be successful, EME will continue to be successful.
Let’s just keep the peace one big happy family.
I am going little into what was reported that at your album launch
that Wizzy was ignored. He was not acknowledged at the album launch.
I have to explain it. The album launch was structured in a very specific
way. We used the album launch, I might add, to launch the Samsung
Galaxy Brand phone by the way if you haven’t got one you might go out to
get one which has my signature on it but at the album launch nobody was
acknowledged because it was not one of those events where you sit down
and say “Oh Don Jazzy is in the building and now we have the CEO of
Samsung in the building and now you have eLDee the Don in the building
who were there.
We wanted to have something that is not a typical event. Secondly from
the stage, I don’t acknowledge anybody and that is not a disrespectful
thing it is just the structure of the event. Wiz came in like Don Jazzy,
Samsung Executives, eLDee the Don, IK, Waje, like everybody else came
in and we had a fantastic event and nobody was complaining from my end
but again I go back to the fact that people want to create bad news and
it is exciting. Exciting for some people when Biggy and 2Pac are
throwing words at each other and when Nas and Jay-Z are fighting and
then people just want to create that and it is sad, really sad.
Why didn’t they write Don Jazzy came to the event and I don’t hail him?
Why didn’t they write I didn’t hail any of the other EME artiste that
came to the event? Why didn’t they write I didn’t hail Segun Demuren,
that is my business partner. They didn’t write it because it wasn’t
exciting.
A lot of people believe that what led to the rift between you and Wiz
is because of the sharing formula. I just want you to clear the air on
that issue.
Okay, again, I want to say about “sharing formula” again, I got back to
the something I have been saying which is when you don’t give them bad
news that create it. EME has the fairest recording deal in the country
by far. I can go pound for pound and show you the terms that EME
artistes including myself even though I own the company, have versus any
other recording contract name the recording company. You don’t do that
but I can beat my chest to say EME has the best recording contract in
the industry, it is not just true for people to say or hint that any of
my artistes are received 25 per cent. It is impossible and even you as
an artiste can never sign that kind of deal so it is 100 per cent false.
Part of the reason the EME deals are structured the way they are is
because I am an artiste myself and when I was coming up, I was offered a
lot of deals even in Nigeria that were not just but now that I’m to
start up myself, I wont sign a deal with an artiste I wont be able to
sign myself which I have also signed the same deal. So to cut the long
story short, the report out there is 100 per cent untrue.
In fact, if you actually look at the clause that EME takes on behalf of
the artistes from the day we signed until when they released their album
or whenever money starts being generated, the deal is actually more in
favour of the artiste than of the company but we do that because I
myself just wouldn’t feel right about a record deal that won’t benefit
the artiste. It is 100 per cent false again. It is just sad that some
people try to create news. They don’t have the fact so they create them.
However, you have to go back to the things I actually said not the
things people said I said or what people said Wizzy said you know, it is
just what it is.
People can say what they want, but what I tell my artistes is that Jesus
Christ was perfect and he was still crucified. How much more us with
all the crazy, bad messed-up things we have done in our lives and you
think you are going to walk through this paths and be praised? You have
to deal with the territory. You want to go on stage and people are going
to cheer there are come that want to tear you down regardless.
And all you can do really is try to be a good person and try to do right
by everybody God brings your way and if you do that let God take care
of the rest. We are fine, we are cool, very happy with Wiz and for Wiz.
That is all I have to say.
