'Petit Pays used my instrumentals but I was never compensated'

Cameroonian Makossa legend, Petit Pays, released an outstanding hit track on May 12, 2015, titled ‘Il Faut Pardonner’.

The song registered a huge success for the artiste with fans’ highest remark being that the instrumentals were more modern, unlike the traditional and predictable Petit Pays instrumentals.

While Petit Pays is celebrating the success of his song, a young Cameroonian artiste, Ds Cap, is mourning the failure of his own work as a result.

Ds Cap is a young Cameroonian artiste and the original owner of the instrumentals which made Petit Pays’ song what it is today.

The young struggling artiste bought his instrumentals, invested the little he had in recording a song and shooting a video only for the beat to be resold and used by a bigger and more influential artiste. Where are the laws governing our entertainment industry? Are there any rules at all?

Check out both tracks on YouTube and take note of the release dates;

KamerLink talked to Ds Cap and he explained how the whole thing went down.

Ds Cap: “The beat was produced by West B and I paid him for that then took the beat to Bamenda. I recorded the song with Daddy Cool; that was between August and September 2014 and by November 2014, I shot the video with Pizaro. Pizaro took a very long time for the shooting and finally we had quarrels and I collected the data and gave it to drama star who is Das B and he was the one who finally edited the video, not Pizaro. Petit Pays needed Afro-Pop instrumentals and so he sent his agents to that studio and West B, who did the beat for me, had travelled according to what he told me to Yaounde. So the owner of the studio now took my beat alongside other beats to Petit Pays but Petit Pays chose only my beat which had my name on it. Meanwhile, I had already shot the video in Bamenda and it was under editing process. That’s exactly what happened”.

The whole incident played over the young artiste’s moral and he found it hard promoting his song. Hence, the song did not make as much impact as he intended.

Also, check out the latest release by Ds Cap below.